Let's make Warli painting!! These white-triangled figures and animals are easy to draw and kids will love to draw these detailed village scene.

What is Warli painting?

Warli art is a form of tribal art from the state of Maharashtra, in western India.
warli painting people

These are paintings done on walls of the huts of villagers on special occasions by the women of the tribes. The walls of these houses are made from a mixture of branches, earth, and cow dung. So they are red ochre in color. Red Ochre is a color that ranges from yellow to brown.

On this background, they use white pigment to paint. The pigment is made from rice paste and water with gum as a binding. The painting brush is made from bamboo stick chewed at the end.

What do the women paint?

They paint normal village scenes and day-to-day activities of the people in the village. These include farming, hunting, fishing, festivals, and dances.

Trees, animals, rivers, and houses are then drawn to complete the village scene.

If you are interested in exploring more tribal art forms from India, check out Pithora painting.Pithora painting is another form of paintings done on walls.

The tarpa dance is one of the central themes of these warli paintings. The tarpa is the trumpet-like instrument played by men in the village. Men and women circle around the tarpa dancer. They either dance in the clockwise or anticlockwise direction as indicated by the tarpa dancer in the center. This is seen in many paintings where a spiraling circle is drawn with women holding hands and the man with the tarpa in the center.

Warli painting for kids

This art is easy to draw as it is drawn with simple shapes and triangles. Human figures are drawn two triangles forming an X. These figures are always in action, dancing, cooking, climbing trees, plowing, and fishing.

The huts are in the form of triangles too. The thin fine lines on the roof indicate straw roofs of the huts.

warli art houses

The animals and birds are in every painting as part of the village life.  The animals are also drawn in the form of triangles. You can clearly understand whether the animal is a cow or a deer or a horse. The tiger looks quite different from the rest of the animals

warli art animals

The trees are detailed. Each leaf is drawn for the plant and that gives a decorative look to the plant. A palm tree looks quite interesting in a Warli art.

warli-painting_trees

So let's paint a Warli painting.

Art supplies for Warli art

Paint on a dark background. Use a dark red, orange or even a black paper to paint. Here I have used scrapbook paper which you can easily get in the market. Construction paper or chart paper is also good.  You need a soft white pencil to draw. I have used this charcoal pencil because it gives a chalky finish to the paintings which you will see in Warli paintings.

easy warli artNow it is time to compose an entirevillage scene.

See how to create other forms of tribal art.

Products used for these paintings above.