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ABORIGINAL DOT PAINTING

There are many ways for children to recreate the Aboriginal painting style.  In this case I gave a group of KS2 children images of Australian animals. They drew a basic outline of their chosen animal onto a mini canvas (quite cheap if you buy online) and then painted the animal and background in solid colours.

They then used the end of a paintbrush to carefully add dots in rows, following the outline of the animal.  To create larger dots you could use the end of a chunky felt tip pen.

I like to spend time with children beforehand looking at Aboriginal paintings and the colours used.  I think it works well to use a mix of more traditional oranges, browns and yellows alongside bright pinks, blues and greens.  A white outline can also help a central image to stand out clearly from the background.

This technique can be quite time consuming but children are usually very happy with the results.

ABORIGINAL RAINSTICKS

 With younger children I used some large round sponges (can be bought from larger art suppliers) to decorate these Aboriginal rain sticks.

I pre-painted some cardboard tubes and then the children had great fun adding the dots to create simple patterns.

While waiting for the paint to dry I gave the children coloured paper circles on which they created dot patterns using felt tips.  Once dry, we poured rice or lentils into the tube and attached the paper circles onto each end using elastic bands.

Here are some rain sticks made by older children using felt tip pen ends.