Let's Make It!

Next, you'll create your own Aboriginal Watershed painting.

Create Your Painting

1. Use white paint and a q-tip or small paintbrush to add white dots as an outline for the image.

2. On a separate piece of paper, create a legend for Waters Listed as Polluted, Waters with Cleanup Plans, Polluted Runoff Control Locations and Mapped Waters. Assign each category a color.

3. Looking at your original map, determine which area of your tracing will receive each color. For example, look at which waters on your tracing are Waters Listed as Polluted. If you labeled those as red on your legend, you would use the red paint to create those on your painting.

4. Using your paintbrush, add the colors from your legend to the areas on your traced map painted lines.

5. Once you have your colors in place, begin to look for patterns or areas of interest in your map. Create painted circles around these areas. The choice of color and the choice of interest is up to you. Remember: you want your map to both document water flow and tell a story. Use the paint and interest area of interest to accomplish both of these goals.

6. Finally, fill in the rest of the map using dots of paint colors of your choice. These must be dots of paint using your q-tip or paintbrush (similar to the Aboriginal Art we viewed earlier).