Hunt around in your backyard for coloured rocks, not the type you buy from a garden centre these ones need to be naturally occurring Australian rocks. If your garden is a formal manicured one you may need to go rock hunting in your local park. Put a couple of similar coloured rocks into a mortar and pestle. I explained to the kids that the aboriginal people would have used a grinding stone but since we didn’t have one on us the mortar and pestle would have to suffice.
Once your rocks are all smashed up nicely, you need a fairly even powder or you will have lumpy paint, a little water is added to form a paste.
A little more grinding and stirring is needed to break up any remaining lumps. Then you can add more water to thin the mixture to a paint like consistency.
Alanah’s Lizard
We chose to copy images of cave paintings and rock carvings found in our local area. This helped the kids really get a feel for the traditional aboriginal style of representing the natural world around them.
Elijah’s Snake
We also used Gum leaves and grasses to make a very light brown and a green coloured paint. There is a yellow rock and dried white clay that can make very effective colours but we didn’t have any lying around.
Lillian’s Echidna
Oh and the cutest thing, Lilly calls these little guys A Kanidnas, she just can’t get her tongue around the correct pronunciation.
My sister and I used to do something similar with Mississippi clay. Except we would paint our bodies. 😉
Love this. i wish i was at your school!!!
you should do a Lilly dictionary one day……
My grandkids wanted to learn indigenous paint making and I am going to endeavor to show them this way as we have plenty of rock around for them to experiment with. Thanks for the info, all Aussie kids should learn from our indigenous family