For our first project, grade 1 students learned about Gond art. The Gond community come from central India and their art is an expression of their everyday life.
The word “Gond” means “the green mountain”. The Gond people go back 1400 years. Today, many Gond people decorate the walls of their houses with paintings of flora, fauna and gods.
The artists use colors made from natural materials like charcoal, colored soil, leaves and even cow dung. The art is created by putting together dots and lines.
After learning about this style of art, we drew fish with black oil pastels and decorated them with patterns using many different types of lines. “Magical” (invisible) patterns were drawn in the negative space using white oil pastels, and then students painted over their drawings using liquid watercolour paint to reveal the magic.
To learn more about Gond art please visit this link to an article by Avinash Subramaniam.