Aboriginal Snakes

In college I spent 6 months In Melbourne, Australia as part of a Study Abroad Program. 

Me in front of Uluru 

We wore Mosquito Nets on Our head to keep off All the FLIES!

What a rewarding experience!!  Melbourne was the cleanest and most functioning city I have ever seen and the people were so friendly!  During my stay there I traveled with a group to the center of Australia.. To the place which makes up what most American's imagine of Australia.. The Great Outback.  The red sand, Hot sun, and nothing but rocks!  One thing you don't see in the pictures are all the FLIES!

kangaroo Tails- Poor Kangaroos!
                                                                                                                     

 The Aboriginals of Australia are comparable to the Native Americans here and they have great history and traditions.  While we had a campfire and ate Kangaroo Tails fried on the barbee.. They told us the tale of the Rainbow Serpent.  This 'Rainbow Serpent' is usually thought of as a huge snake living within the deepest waterholes of many of Australia's waterways-it reveals itself to people as a rainbow as it moves through water and rain, shaping landscapes, naming and singing of places, strengthening the knowledgeable with rainmaking and healing powers.

The Ochre Rocks 

While there, I just fell in love with the people and their life style so anytime I get a chance I do an Australia-inspired art lesson.  This lesson was done with a special education class with kids ranging from 1st-4h grade levels.   My students are from an innercity in the US so I wanted to get them familiar with the area so this one started out with a PowerPoint of pictures of the land and my travels to show them how the sand was red, the huge valleys and rocks.  We went over the different animals that lived there, & how the seasons are opposite there.  The students seemed in awe.. what is this foreign place?  We looked at a globe after and I shared my photo albulms with them.  This really seemed to interest them.   

We talked about Color Palettes & learned that the word Ochre refers to pigment taken from rocks & used to make paint.  I explained to them that the Aborignals had a limited color palette becuase they only had what they could get from earth- which was oranges, yellows, browns. and a faint red.  Therefore, that was all we were going to use in our paintings. 
              
What could they paint on if they didn't have paper?  I got all kinds of interesting answers of course, but we finally got to trees! 

Step 1: Make Paper look like bark.
We took planks of wood, put our paper on top and used a brown "naked" crayon to do a crayong rubbing and replicate the texture of the wood onto the paper. 
Next we took Brown Water Color Paint and painted a light wash over the crayon to create a Watercolor resist. 


Step 2:  The Rainbow Serpant
We started by drawing a large (stress Large) Letter S on our paper. 
We did a copy cat line of the letter S leaving about 3 fingers space between the two.  Really try to keep the copy cat line an equal distance away from the first S
Next continue the top of the S around the body to make the snake's head and continue the bottom of the S up and into the snake's tail. 


Step 3.  Create Symbols
I talk to the students about about what symbols are.  I show them Aboriginal symbols and what their meanings on.  Sometimes we can guess, and sometimes it is hard to guess how the symbol became to be that word.  I encourage students to make a list of their own symbols with their own meanings. 


Step 4.  Draw
Draw 10 lines throughout the snake's body breaking it into sections.  In each section, draw your symbols.  Combine them to try to make phrases


Step 5.  Paint
Students use tiny brushes and tempora paint in our color palette to paint their designs


Step 6.  Outline in permanent marker