Lines, circles, squiggles, and triangles, Kids will love to make up their own scenes with this post-Easy Indian Warli Art for Kids – with step by step pictures
Easy Indian Warli Art for Kids – Step by step images
What is Warli Art?
Warli painting is a form of tribal art mostly created by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra, India.
What are the main features of Warli painting?
– Warli Paintings are rudimentary wall paintings that use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle, and a square. – The paintings are monosyllabic.
Warli Art form is the easiest for little kids to start learning about India’s Folk art. Every kid can easily relate to the simple geometrical figures that a Warli drawing is comprised of. It’s also a great way to teach them about common shapes – lines, dots, triangles & circles.
How is Warli painting done?
The Warli paintings are done on mud walls with white paste. This white paste is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a binding. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush.
The easiest way to introduce this art I thought would be to show Lil P some books. I chanced upon this lovely book by Tulika
Introduce Warli Art for Kids with a book – Dancing on walls
[by Shamin Padamsee, illustrations Uma Krishnaswamy ]
With its vibrant colors and simple Warli art, it caught Lil p’s attention. Which little girl wouldn’t be mesmerized by the story of a girl who finds mystical moon characters that create magic?
At the end of the story, I asked Lil P if she wanted to paint the silver beings like Shivri ( the Lil girl from the book) and I heard a big YES.
mamma let’s paint walri* … and so we did.
Buy on amazon.com
Characteristics of Warli Art for Kids – The Basic Figure
Warli art is composed of simplified and elementary graphic constructs. They use basic geometric shapes for depicting usual symbols of life and the world around them. Humans in Warli art would be represented by ‘stick’ figures or triangles reflecting the basic anatomy.
Start off with a simple X, then join the edges and add the neck, head, and finally hands and legs. You can leave it as is or color it in. Both look equally good. Once you master the basic image, you can repeat the same to create more intricate Warli patterns.
We had a lot of fun making funny stick figures. Some had long hair, some wore a hat.. Some were dancing, some watching. Mumma why are boys wearing a skirt?? I think in walri everyone is happy so they are all wearing a dancing dress. We drew a cat.. haha. Mumma this looks like a walri tiger .. he is so big.
Have a look at my nearly 4-year old’s Warli artwork 🙂
The only problem was that once she had her figures ready, she wanted them to magically get her lots n lots of gifts just like in the book. Now that’s a story for another day. See Ya!
*Walri – Warli the way lil p says it.
The Lovely Neeta Nadkarni shares some more fun step-by-step ideas on her Facebook Page.
More Warli Ideas –
Explore other Folk Art of India
Painting a simple Madhubani Fish in 12 steps
Easy Madhubani Elephant Folk Art Bookmark
DIY Madhubani style Kite bookmark & a Kite card
DIY Gond Folk Art Parrot Bookmarks
Exploring India Folk and Tribal Art: Gond Painting step by step
Wow! you are a rock star and so is lil’P…I should try this with R..may be after some months 🙂
Superb. Can I get your live demo videos on you tube
http://abouttimenow.blogspot.com/2010/07/wah-re-warli.html
Same pinch and your step by step guide would be great for kids
Partham has a couple of books as well with Warli and Potli and ToyKraft both have warli kits
good work
Ha ha! Gifts? Thatz so cute 🙂
I luvvv Warli and got a DIY recently! Remembered u so much there 🙂
Wow.. that was wonderful. I was quite at a loss when you set folk art for kids as the theme for this month but this seems like fun. Will try it out with my daughter.
Lovely !! Love the step by step progress…
Wonderful! I echo obsessive mom’s words too…. was wondering how on earth I could get samhith to make any folk art, but this sounds like fun… we’ll surely try it out!
I love Warli paintings and this is a great way to introduce this to a young one. 🙂
Superb….We’re all crazy abt warli here…and exclaim wherever we find it. Lovely drawings!
That’s so BEAUTIFUL!!!Gorgeous colours! Lil A loves Warli too…:))We’ve made some together:))
@OM: Do try it out. Lil P had a lot of fun.
@R’s mom: Hmmma do check out the next post on warli – coming up just for you.
@Emreen: Thanks 🙂
@Anu: Do try and link in ur entries before 27th
@Knottygal: Thanks 🙂
@Starry: Cool. then you will have lot of pics already. Link them all in.
@Art: Awesome!!! anush is very talented. Do link in this post.
Thanks for suggesting pratham. I just found their warli book on scribd. 🙂 and I had fogotten about the kits. will add them in a post.
@Deepa: ahh. Lil a is really talented. do link her warli art in the artsy-craftsy-June
@Swaram: See? now you should take part. I remember teaching warli to street kids years ago. It was such a big hit for its simplicity
That’s very interesting. Kids enjoy Warli, with its bright feel.
The Warli tribals drew their daily lives, recording for posterity.
I believe there’re tours organised to Warli villages.
beautifully taught and nicely done by lil’P!
One of my favourite Tulika books. P’s fav and oft repeated line from the book is ‘we work at the speed of light’ 😉
I just love Warli 🙂 Will try it with P. You are doing an awesome job getting so many of us going, thank you!!
What a Coincidene. Yesterday i saw a program in Podighai tv teaching how to do worli painting and they made a pen stand and embellished it with worli paintings.
I have a beautiful bedspread decorated with worli paintings at home. My DD gets busy with those paintings trying to trace them with her tender fingers whenever that particular bed spread is on!
On seeing yesterday’s program she even drew one on her own, will soon scan it and share it on my blog Adithis Amma Sews
This is beautiful! I love all of your posts about the warli paintings:). I am passionate about teaching my kids about other cultures and will be using your activities! I love when we can link a cultural lesson with an art project, snack, children’s book, etc- it makes it much more meaningful to the kids. If you are ever interested in sharing this type of Indian cultural activities with my readers on kidworldcitizen, please let me know!!! 🙂 I am sharing on facebook.com/kidworldcitizen and pinterest.com/kidworldcitizen….
Found a really good Warli Painting here: https://artbadshah.com/product/warli-painting/
Beautifully taught warli design
Thank you. I just tried it with my daughter 🙂
Pl’s do check Facebook page MistikArt . My dad’s published a wonderful book on warli… it’s called Master the art of warli in 22 easy steps. Price rs 350/-.
Hi Shruti
I want learn Warli painting through internet.
So I want to which material are required?
Pl can you help me?
Thanks
Hi shruti…
I loved your step by step teaching on worli art for kids. I would like to connect witj you.