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Warli In Classroom
A Guide To Introducing Warli Art Based Activities In Classroom
Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................ 2
Warli Mobile ............................................................................................... 3
Do! A Sentence ........................................................................................... 7
Warli Inspirations ........................................................................................ 11
Resources .................................................................................................... 12
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Introduction
Warli is an art form of the Warli tribal community of Maharashtra, India. Typically Warli
paintings are done with white rice paste on walls that are painted in rust color. Traditionally the
Warlis paint pictograms with a series of circles and triangles to signify occurrences such as birth,
death, wedding, harvest etc.
To me the elements of Warli art that strikes me as obvious are the spirals, the triangles, the ability
of Warli to convey a story on a canvas and its simplicity. Based on my interpretation of Warli, I
have designed some activities that can be used by educators in a classroom.
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Warli Mobile
Child Centered/Adult Directed: Child centered. The young four year olds might need some
adult supervision, especially for the drawing part.
Time:
An hour for the adult to study and understand the activity.
15 min for set up.
Approximately 45 minutes to complete the activity.
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Purpose of Activity:
Curriculum Area - Fine Motor Skills. Though simple from an adult perspective, the control of
scissors using the thumb, index and middle fingers is something children struggle to master. The
fine motor control acts as a stepping stone to writing with a pencil/pen.
Secondary purpose - To bring out the key elements of Warli art, namely fluidity, movement,
rhythm, sense of community and joy of creation.
Materials Needed:
(1) A light weight paper plate, approximately 6-8 inches, preferably white in color.
(2) Pencil
(3) Black marker
(4) Scissors
(5) String
(6) Needle
Procedure:
(1) Place the paper plate right side down.
(2) Mark the center of the plate with black marker
(3) With a pencil, draw a spiral shape on the plate. The distance between the lines in your spiral
determines how your finished mobile looks.
(4) Closely spaced the spiral lines will result in a long twisty ribbon.
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(5) Draw your Warli themed pictogram in such a way that the figures are between the lines.
(6) Color your Warli pictogram.
Expected Outcomes:
(1)The adult has a fairly good idea of the fine motor skills of the group he/she works with.
(2)At the end of the session, children are familiar with the components of Warli art.
(3)Fun!! What else?!
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Variations:
I believe in re-introducing the same activity multiple times over a period of time. Once you feel
the children have a good understanding of Warli art and its elements, step back and take inputs
from your group. You will be amazed at the variations they come up with. I will leave you with a
picture of at least one variation I can think of. See, the possibilities are endless.
Newspaper cut in to long strips, folded like a fan and cut in to the shape of a Warli style woman.
The chain can then be arranged to any dancing spiral.
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Do! A Sentence
Description If Activity:
The pictures in Do! are representative of actions. They are flash card compatible and can be used
in classrooms to learn a second language. Taking this concept a step further, is this activity to use
Do! to help second language learners form sentences.
A basic three word sentence has three components that can be further sub-divided in to many
more components thus providing us lot more information than the three words provide stand
alone. This can be best illustrated by the flow chart below.
Present Tense:
3rd Person:
Drinking
He,She,
They, Them
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I - Pronoun referring to the speaker
Milk - A type of nourishment secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals.
Drink - To take water or any other liquid in the mouth and swallow it.
When these three words, meaning something basic by themselves, when combined together
convey more meaning than what they stand for. In Tamil, it is even more complicated because
the language accommodates the gender and age of the subject. This activity is designed to help
Tamil as a second language learner come up with sentences, boost their confidence and to help
them to make an initiative to talk in Tamil.
Materials Needed:
(1) A file with three rings.
(2) Flash cards with the subject, object and action. Punch holes on the cards so that they can be
placed in the file.
Examples of SUBJECT flash cards. (I, Me, He, She, Them, They, Him, Her)
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Examples of OBJECT flash cards. (Ball, Book, Tree)
Examples of ACTION flash cards. Same verb (PLAY). Red for past tense, yellow for present
tense and blue for future tense.
Procedure:
(1) Choose any card from the first section, namely the subject.
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(2) Choose any card from the second section, namely object.
(3) Choose the tense red for past tense, blue for future tense and yellow for present tense. For
example if you picked yellow for present tense, pick the action cards that matches the object.
Example: Ball -> play. Water -> drink.
(4) Form your sentence. Example, SHE READ A BOOK.
Expected Outcomes:
(1) The user understands the usage of different parts of Tamil language such as gender based
nominalaizers, respect based nominalaizer, negation, tense etc.
(2) Increases confidence to make conversations second language.
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Warli Inspirations
Warli inspires adults and children equally. With its basic shapes made of circles and triangles
children find it easy to tell their own story in Warli. ArtNavy (abouttimenow.blogspot.com/) and
Vibha (literarysojourn.blogspot.com/) share what Warli inspired their children to create.
Art says, “Over a year ago, we had read Dancing on Walls from Tulika. This helped Anush
recognise the Warli painting we had had at home for a decade!! She also attempted a free hand
herself on a discarded mishti dahi ( sweet curd) holder terracotta pot, which we gifted to a
friend.”
“Mid year or so, we got a lovely Warli kit which included terracotta pots and a plate. It had an
interesting write up as well on Warli work. Anushka ( nearing five then) insisted on applying the
coat of brown herself. The colour choice rationale was that Warli is usually done on walls which
are brown- red in colour. This was followed by my doing the outlines for her which she filled in
with care and fair amount of precision. Since she was familiar with geometric shapes, it was
even simpler to explain to her how a few lines, a circle and a couple of triangles can result in a
person.”
Vibha says, “Since the time we were introduced to the warli art, we have very diligently brought
this art in almost every part of our lives - be it our T-shirts, skirts, bed covers, wallhangings or
birthday invitations or thank you notes to school teachers. Raghav and Medha, both enjoy
working with black pens on white background and I keep changing the medium.”
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Warli Resources And References
Books
Do! by Tara Books, India
Dancing On The Walls by Tulika Books Publishers, India
The First Farmers: A Warli Folktale by Pratham Books
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