a faithful attempt: Korhogo Cloth Paintings

Korhogo cloth is an African textile made by the Senufo people of Korhogo, Ivory Coast. Korhogo comes in neutral and earthy tones like browns, blacks and creams. Korhogo is made by hand painting designs on hand woven and hand spun cotton fabric. The paintings are done using a specially fermented mud-based and natural vegetable pigment that darkens over time, and designs are usually drawn on using a stencil. They are decorated with symbols of humans, natural elements like the sun, moon and stars and animals, all of which are rooted in Senufo culture and mythology. (source)

I started off by showing Grade 6 students a map of Africa. I love incorporating geography into my art lessons. I like to emphasize that Africa is a continent not a country!! Students learned where the Ivory Coast is and I showed them a slideshow of different types of Korhogo.

actual sample

So Grade 6 students started by drawing a border and filling it with a pattern. They all wanted to use rulers but I told them they needed to look handmade and more organic. Then they chose animals to illustrate and filled them with the typical line patterns.

I mixed up some brown tempera with some black to create a dark brown shade. Students collected sticks from outside and then traced over all the pencil lines with the paint. The kids found using the sticks super frustrating so I had to continually encourage them to keep going!