Indigenous Art with Natalie Bateman

We are very fortunate to have a talented local Indigenous artist Natalie Bateman come and deliver Indigenous art and language workshops with the students this term.

Each class will have 2 workshop sessions, where they will learn some Dhurga language that the local Yuin people traditionally use as well as produce some Indigenous art.

The Year 3/4 class were the very first class to meet Natalie and listen to her stories and learn some local Indigenous names of Australian native animals.

The students learnt that the phonemes from the Dhurga language can differ in pronunciation compared to the English sound associated with the same letters. There are even combinations of letters that feature in the Dhurga language that do not feature in the typical spelling structure of the English language. Very interesting learning and discussions took place, and many thanks to Natalie for explaining the answers with such great examples!

Natalie then guided the students to create dot paintings and line paintings featuring an Australian native animal of their choice, as well as features of the natural environment such as the sun, hand prints and footprints.

In the following art and language session with Natalie, students learnt how to paint with ochre, and were shown how to grind ochre from a rock like consistency to a powder. Students got to experience grinding the ochre onto another hard rock and then added water to turn it into a paint like consistency. Students learnt that the red ochre is traditionally used as war paint colour by Aboriginal tribes, and the white ochre is used for ceremonial use.

Natalie then taught the students about traditional Aboriginal symbols, such as meeting place, fireplace, river and waterholes. The students then used a combination of these designs as well as their knowledge of the native animals from the week before to paint with ochre onto a rock that will be on display in our school garden, near the entrance of our school.

We would like to thank Natalie for coming to our school and sharing her knowledge with us. Natalie will be visiting all classes in our school throughout Term 1.