While researching projects to do we came across quite a few different aboriginal projects for some reason or another. We liked them so much that we combined a couple to create an aboriginal session. I like it because of it's playfulness, and it seems easy for the kids to relate to it. We had two different projects one based on the the old hand paintings that you might see on a cave or rock wall, and the the other was about their dot paintings. We showed the kids a brief slide show to go over both projects and so they could see some true aboriginal artwork.
We started with the hand print project. The children traced their hands onto to a piece of paper, and cut it out. They temporarily taped their hand cutout onto a piece of black paper and drew with oil pastels around it. We suggested that they use repeating patterns around their hand similar to how they used to do. After they were finished drawing we they sprayed white tempera paint around they hand cutout. Finally, we removed the cutout off to show their spray painted handprint on the paper.
The dot art project we began with talking about the use of symbols and how the aboriginals use animals as symbols as well as typical Australian animals. We had the children draw with colored pencils an animal in the center of the page. Using a cotton swab the children then place rings of dots around their animal picture.
