Australian Aboriginal Dot Painting
What is Australian Aboriginal dot painting? It is based on the art of Indigenous Australian artists who used dots to create images from nature or dreams. X-ray art shows both the outside and inside (bones, heart, etc) of a figure.
Watch this to see an Aboriginal piece of art come to life!
We started off talking about Australian dot art and x-ray art. We looked at a book named "An Australian abc of Animals" that was illustrated by an amazing artist named Bronwyn Bancroft. Even though its an ABC board book meant for much younger children, it has beautiful examples of dot/x-ray art that apply to our project.
Students chose which Australian animal they wanted as the centerpiece of their art and traced a template of that animal. They had a choice of black or white for the background. If they chose white, the animal had to be filled in with black acrylic paint (our medium this week). If they chose black, the animal was to be painted the color of their choice.
Then they chose 3 colors for the dot patterns in the background. Using a Q-tip, they dotted paint in the first color around the entire edge of the animal. This was repeated with the second and then third color.
At this point they could continue repeating the pattern, or create their own. We had some imaginative swirls, circles, and flourishes!
Once the background pattern was completed, students moved on to creating simple, 2 color borders.
By this time, the paint inside the animal was dry, so they could start working on the interior design. This is where the x-ray elements could come into play if they chose to go that direction. Examples of x-ray parts they might choose to paint could be a heart, brains, or stomach - or they could choose to emphasize the legs on a kangaroo by painting muscles, create designs on the tail of a lizard, or patterns on the shell of a turtle. Or they could simply continue to use dots inside the animal or even just create whatever felt right to them.
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| LD's Platypus and JD's Turtle |
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| MC's Koala and DB's Kangaroo |
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| JV's Kangaroo and BCB's Goanna |
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| MK's Turtle |
About half of the paintings had a little more work to be done, so those will get finished up during our next class or when time permits. They all look fantastic and I can't wait to see the final pieces!
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| IJ's Dingo and BB''s Platypus |
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| PM's Koala and JD's Frog |
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| AB's Frog and NB's Koala |
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| SB's Dingo and KR's Koala |
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| NoB's Koala |
