Circle Art

This is a fun activity that I used a few years ago when we were doing an Arts (Scissors create-a-challenge) badge. This was wonderful at the start of the meeting, while waiting for everybody to arrive.

I made my own template based off a design I found, however, I forgot to write down the source... I have a feeling it was an old Girl Scouts Science and Technology pack.

I loved the unique the designs!

Indian traditions: Warli art

I love art projects, so choosing to teach the girl's about the Warli tribe and their traditional art wasn't even a question during our Indian term.

The Warli people are from the state of Maharashtra, mostly located on the northern outskirts of Mumbai. Rather than depicting deities, their art tells a story of moments in everyday life such as hunting, dancing and harvesting. Warli art was traditionally painted on the inside walls of mud huts, usually for a celebration such as a marriage.

Have a look at this Indian Warli Art website for more information.


Our meeting began as you may have guessed, with a discussion and photo slideshow. Why mess with something that is working well? It gives me a chance to share information with the girls and they love to see the real-life examples on the computer screen. It has worked wonders for imparting the "learning material" this term!

Here is some Warli art painted on the wall at Sangam's entrance.

After looking at examples of and discussing Warli art, we moved onto the practical portion of the meeting. 

I demonstrated to the girl's how to draw different people and objects in the Warli style. We began with the basic person standing and then worked our way through a variety of poses - walking, running and sitting to name a few.

My photo, not my drawings.

As I drew on the whiteboard, the Brownie's followed along, drawing on pieces of paper. Other objects we drew included: 

• trees
• sun, moon, clouds, stars
• campfire
• line of people dancing
• musical instruments

Some Brownie drawings. It's merely a coincidence that I only took photos of drawings that used blue texta. The was a rainbow of colour used, I just didn't capture it.

Once everybody had learnt the basics, it was time to move onto the painting. Each girl had a 12x12 inch piece of calico on which to paint. I had purchased thin-tipped paint brushes to make painting the fine details easier.

While traditionally, the Warli tribe used white for their painting, calico was the easiest and cheapest material for us to paint on and so we painted with black paint. If I had more time at my disposal, I would have liked to paint the calico beforehand to imitate the red ochre walls of the Warli mud huts.

I asked the girl's to plan their paintings before touching the paint and to think about the story that they wanted to tell.

Here are some of the final designs:

This was a meeting where we could have easily kept going for another hour. The Brownies were completely enthralled the entire time, and I think they really enjoyed the simple tricks used to easily recreate the Warli designs. An A+ meeting!

Indian Traditions: mehndi

Following on from our rangoli meeting, we moved on to the Indian tradition of mehndi. Also known as henna, mehndi is a paste made from the leaves of the henna plant. In India, it is typically applied for celebrations such as weddings and festivals.

A few weeks prior to the meeting, I had sent home the below permission note to families. 

At the meeting we discussed how mehndi is made (traditionally and commercially), when it is used and also looked at photographs of different designs both simple and intricate. I demonstrated how to draw a few simple designs (swirls, dots and flowers) and then the girl's created their own designs on a printed hand template.

The mehndi cones we used (see picture on the note above) are from India. You can purchase these on eBay or buy them at a local Indian store. Once you start looking, you will realise they are fairly easy to come by! Drawing the designs below on about 20 girls only used two cones, so if you buy a pack of twelve like I did, you will have plenty for future meetings!

Parents and Guide helpers drew the final designs on the girl's as we needed to be efficient with our limited time. We dried the completed designs using a hairdryer. The biggest challenge was stopping the Brownie Guides from touching the mehndi. The wet would smudge and the dry paste would get picked off to see the design underneath. For this reason, the ankle designs worked better than the palm, as they were mostly left alone.

Some of the designs:

A fun meeting, but definitely make sure you have other adults to assist along the way!

Related meeting ideas:

• World Guiding meeting #1: World Centres
• World Guiding meeting #2: WAGGGS regions
• World Guiding meeting #3: WAGGGS and the Links of Unity
• Other People meeting #1: Sangam World Centre
• Other People meeting #2: Rangoli (Indian traditions)

Reindeer are better than people

To end the year, the Brownies had a pajama and movie night watching their current favorite movie, Frozen. They sang along with Anna, Elsa and Olaf and shouted, "He's a liar!" when Hans came on the screen. 

One of the best things about the end of the year is the sweet Christmas cards I receive from the girls. One of the handmade cards I received even included a drawing of a new badge. Isn't it great?!

Scribble Party

A scribble party is something that I have wanted to use as a meeting for a long time, but there has never been any time in our term program.

However, this year we chose to give our usual Halloween party a miss, which gave me the perfect opportunity to give it a try. It also doubled as a farewell party for one of the Brownies that was bridging to the Guide unit. A scribble tshirt doubled wonderfully as a memory tshirt and at the end of the night the girls covered her tshirt in lovely farewell messages.

Photo credit: http://drjeanandfriends.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/time-capsules-and-memory-shirts.html

The Brownies each invited a friend and every girl was told to wear a plain white tshirt that was allowed to be decorated. Most parents just purchased new white shirts, with Kmart having the best deal for just $2 a shirt!


Equipment needed:

• White tshirt per person
• Fabric markers - make sure to buy these ahead of time so that you can shop around for the best price! I purchased a 10 pack of crayola fabric markers for $8.50, but in most shops they cost well over $10. The price adds up quickly depending how many packets you need to buy.
• Instructions on how to set the fabric markers so that they don't run - one per girl. For Crayola the instructions were located on the back of the box and involved ironing the shirt while it was inside out.

Activities:

• Whistle Game - we play this often as an ice-breaker, and it is simple to add the drawing element. Give each girl a fabric marker. The Guides move around the room at random as instructed (e.g. skipping, hopping) until the whistle is blown signaling they need to form a group. The number of whistles dictates the number of girls in each group. 3 whistles = a group of 3 girls. Once in a group, sign the shirt of everybody in the group. Play continues with the stipulation to find new people for your group each round.

• Whispered drawings - much like Chinese whispers. Everybody sits in a circle and the first girl passes on a simple message of something that can be drawn eg. A cat wearing a hat. The message is passed around the circle, to the last girl who then draws the picture on the back of the first girl. The answer and drawing is then revealed and laughter ensues. Play continues starting with the next player. The girls loved this so much that it ran for much longer than anticipated!

• Drawing relay races

• Free Draw!

These are some of the designs that ended up on my shirt. I also have many signatures and some lovely messages!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would you consider having a scribble party at your meeting?