zondag 14 augustus 2011

African adire

Made by a student of grade 4
You need:
  1. white drawing paper A4 size
  2. crayons
  3. liquid watercolour
  4. brush
  5. ruler
  6. pencil
Yoruba women in Nigeria make a type of resist-dyed cloth that they call adire. They make some adire by folding, tying, and/or stitching cloth with raffia before dyeing. This is called adire oniko, after the word for raffia, iko. They also make another type, adire eleko, by painting or stenciling designs on the cloth with starch. Both types are dyed in indigo, a natural blue dye.
The dye-resistant starch can be either painted freehand or stenciled onto the fabric. When freehand painting, the artist usually paints a grid of squares or rectangles onto the fabric first. Then she fills these squares with geometric and representational motifs.
Stenciled patterns are even more diverse. New motifs, both geometric and representational, are constantly being created. They can include everything from simple shapes to elephants, keys, letters, and skyscrapers. The metal stencils are made by men, who sell them to the female adire artists.

Show some pictures of african adire and discuss them. Show African symbols and talk about their meanings.

Students use pencil and ruler to divide their sheets in squares of 5 by 5 cm. Draw with a yellow or white crayon symbols and/or patterns in these squares. Paint the sheet using coloured ink.

6 opmerkingen:

  1. The designs and colors are beautiful
    I love the simplicity of lines.
    You can't go wrong with the resist-dyed technique.

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  2. I've just been thinking about this theme myself! Have a great school year. Hope you had an excellent time on your trip this summer.

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  3. Thanks Kathy, wish you the same! Our trip was great. If you want to see the pictures, see my profile for the (Dutch) blog!

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  4. ontzettend gaaf! leuk idee om afrikaanse kunst erbij te betrekken als voorbeeld. ...en erg handig dat je een NL en EN website hebt ..nu weet ik eindelijk dat liquid water color...ecoline is...ik heb me rot gezocht. Gr Esther.

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  5. Thanks Mrs. Skojec!
    En @ Eshter: haha, je wilt niet weten hoe lang ik gezocht heb naar een goede vertaling van ecoline. Heb er meerdere art supplies webshops voor afgevlooid!!

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