Aboriginal Inspired Yarn Paintings

This year's theme for NAIDOC Week is 'Because of Her, We Can!' My Year 5 students created these yarn paintings inspired by the paintings of indigenous West Australian women. Some of the artists we researched were Biddee Baadjo, Queenie McKenzie, Eubena Nampitjin, Jill Jack, Kim West Napurrula, Nada Rawlins, Marcia Purdie, Rosie Goodjie and Stumpy Brown.

Yarn paintings or nierika, are traditionally made by the Huichol people of Mexico. I hadn't attempted this before with students and I was surprised by how well they did. We used only pieces of card and a glue stick. 

       

Queenie McKenzie                         Kim West Naparrula                       Eubena Nampitjin             

       

Rosie Goodjie                                    Biddee Baadjo                                                Jill Jac

Marcia Purdie                                       Stumpy Brown                                                   Nada Rawlins

    

   

 

 

 

 

     

   

Paper Plate Weaving

 

Circular weavings on paper plates have been popping up on various websites for the past few years and I finally undertook this project this year with my grade fours. My students used warm colours to paint their plate as well for their weaving so as to represent a sun.

Simple Wood Block Printing

 

This is a great simple introductory print-making project for junior years, however one you could try with any age kids and have great success. The idea came from Whip Up and you can check out the tutorial there. 

I had my grade two students wrap one long piece of wool (or yarn or string) around a wooden block, then tape it down to create a simple stamp for creating prints. They then used a foam roller to roll paint in a colour of their choice onto one side of their block, after choosing a piece of coloured paper they then created a patterned piece of paper full of prints. I allowed them to be as creative as they wished, so some students ended up using two or more sides of their block so they could create multi-coloured prints. Some even experimented with using the unwrapped end of the block to create prints.