Australian Bark Paintings

Third grade artists wrapped up their study of Australia as they explored Australian bark painting.  They viewed Aboriginal cave paintings and learned that the hand print stencil found in many cave paintings can be a symbol of peace;  it is also used as a signature, to show that a person was in that place.

Third graders also viewed bark paintings and learned that the symbols and images found on traditional bark paintings are similar to Aboriginal cave paintings.  While we would have liked to use real bark from the Australian stringybark tree for our bark paintings, we settled for brown Kraft paper and decorative sticks from Mrs. Brouwer’s front yard!