Health Blog

Australian Aboriginal “Cave Painting”

Outcome: To learn about Aboriginal art from Australia, to experience a different method of painting, i.e. with dots of paint and to think about filling a space with color as well as shape.

Materials: Brown wrapping or shipping paper or butcher paper in a cave wall color (brown, black or gray) cut or ripped a little bigger than a hand print, tempera paint of various colors including white or water color pencils, small ‘pegs’ to dip in the paint to create dots (can be little pegs from a peg board, the ends of unsharpened pencils-anything small with a  round end that will make a print of a dot) if tempera paint is used, pencils for names on papers and to trace hand, little cups for liquid paint (if tempera paint is used.), and many examples to show of aboriginal work from Australia-can be found on the web, and an example made by the teacher of how the dots will look, and of course a room full of little hands to trace.

Art History:  Talk about the importance of the aboriginal work in a society that values oral history, show examples and talk about the hand prints, the animals and how the things one sees every day in the environment become important in stories and in art.  Don’t get too heavy though-keep it simple.

Finished Product: A hand print created in a style reminiscent of aboriginal art.

Steps: 

Show examples of work and talk about the cave paintings.  Look at the texture of the walls.  Note the hand prints and little dots.  See if the children can identify different animals and talk history. 
Take a piece of brown paper and wad it up into a tight ball.  The edges can be clean cut, but I like to do ‘ripped’ edges to increase the illusion of a cave wall.
Show the children how to unwrap the ball and smooth it flat again on the table.
Pass out the paper and pencils and have the children write their names on one side and do the wadding and smoothing.
On a white board or chalk board, show the children how to trace their own hand.  When hand is traced, close the hand print so that a line goes all the way around.  Have the children do this step, walking about and helping when necessary.  Remind about adding a line to close the shape of the hand.
On the already started example, show how to make little dots of white paint on the line of the hand print, going all the way around the line.  Note to just dip the end and make a single ‘print’ rather than a moving the peg around like a paint brush or pencil.
Pass out little cups of while paint and the pegs, allowing for shared cups of paint if necessary, and have the children carefully do the dots on the outline of their hands. 
When a child has completed the outline (remind to go slow and careful), add another color to make another outline on the inside of the white line, showing example already created.  Go all the way around in one layer of other color.  When that is complete, repeat step with another color and so on until hand print is filled with layers of different hand prints. 
If your class is more skilled or older, one can add the simple shapes of animals that are seen in their own everyday life, and then repeat the outlining process that was used with the hands.
Using water color pencils is a less labor intensive way to create the little bright dots of paint, but is more expensive and you lose the Enjoy!

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