During our Thanksgiving day camps we take inspiration from some native tribes from both America and Canada. We look at the different ways they live depending on where they live. We look at some of their sacred objects and artifacts to create artworks of our own. We looked at designs of the Southwestern tribes, Navajo, Apache and Pima. This time we made murals on the sidewalk in front of the studio.
I used Rangoli pigments to mix with liquid starch. This brilliant idea came from my friend Lauren Sharpe owner of Art-i-fact, a kids art studio in San Francisco. Rangoli pigments are those colorful powders that Indians (from India) use to color elephants. They are water soluble so it mixes well with the liquid starch and slowly fades away with time and rain. Perfect for sidewalk painting. Look at these amazing colors.
Now looking for liquid starch was not as easy as I had hoped so I finally decided to just make it myself. It's simply make from corn starch and boiling water. I then mixed the powders with the liquid starch to make these brightly colored paints.
After researching some designs we decided to use designs from the Apache, the Navajo and the Pima nations. We talked about the tribes and designs with the kids and then outlined the designs on the sidewalk with chalk.
Then the kids just went to town painting away. While they painted the kids began to organically talk about color, pattern and symmetry. We had some great conversations.
After a few days it faded into this beautiful vintage looking painting.
Happy Painting!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment