Aboriginal Art with Second Grade

Every spring I do a unit on Aboriginal Art (art by indigenous Australians). Frankly, I've never done it the same way twice. Sometimes I extend it to a month long unit. Other times I only spend a week and a half on it.

I usually start with a video from Crystal Productions to give the kids an idea of what the landscape of Australia looks like. The video goes pretty in depth about how the Aboriginals made their own paint from ochers and other natural materials.

One year I cut up a bunch or strawberries and spinach. I added a little bit of food dye to each little concoction. Then I gave the kids yellow powdered tempera and had them mix it up with water. I told them this was the yellow ocher. I also gave them vine charcoal and told them it is a burnt stick to make dark marks on the paper. Then they finger painted with these "natural" paints in the Barramundi X-ray style. (We have a work sheet that has animal skeletons on it.)

Then we move on to dot painting style. I read them an Australian creation story from a book called Sun Mother Wakes the World. It is illustrated in the dot painting style. We look at some of the story telling paintings from this set of art prints. (Also from Crystal Productions) We discuss using an animal to symbolize a person and then I ask them to brainstorm what kind of animals members of their family might be. I usually prime them by asking things like "What kind of animal would a pesky little brother be?" or "What kind of animal would shy sister be?"

We discuss having a centralized composition. (I call it a "center of interest" at this level.) They sketch out their idea for a family story told in pictures. Then they transfer it to a piece of brown paper to simulate painting on bark. I let them do an under painting, so they don't have to paint the entire thing in dots.

When the under painting is dry, I let them turn the brush upside down so they can use the handle to make their dots. They love doing something crazy like turning the brush upside down and I think they really remember the process by doing crazy things.

Here is another X-Ray style painting we did with watercolors:

And more paintings in the dot style:


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lesson+plans art second+grade australia aboriginal painting kids