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Artventures of Baiga– Elementary
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Art & Design Books

Artventures of Baiga– Elementary

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Description

Artventures of Baiga: Elementary teaches children the tribal painting of the Baiga community of Madhya Pradesh through a story. Prakash walks home from school and finds his Amma painting animals onto the wall of their hut. Over the next few pages she tells him who the Baigas are, why they call themselves children of the soil, and what the marks on her own hands mean. The art lesson arrives inside the conversation rather than in a box on the side of the page.

Pattern practice starts the drawing sections. Seven pages of them: dots, wavy lines with sparks, zigzags that Amma compares to lightning, flower-and-dot borders. Motifs follow, each one broken into four numbered steps with the facing page left blank to practise on. A tiger, a Nandi, a caterpillar, two peacocks and a crab.

The last third is activity pages. Join the dots to finish an owl and a turtle, fill Ganesha and Mushak Raj with Baiga dots and spirals, complete a bare tree by drawing the animals that should be living in it, and add to a herd of deer using a different pattern on every one. Two notes pages sit at the end for whatever comes next.

The motifs and reference paintings come from five women of Lorha village in Umaria district: the late Jodhaiya Bai Baiga, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2023 and started painting at the age of sixty-nine, along with Sakun Bai Baiga, Ramrati Bai Baiga, Rupa Baiga and Hema Baiga. Three generations of one family, all of them still working.

Non-cancellable

This product cannot be cancelled once the order is placed. This item is non-returnable.

$ 19
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Frequently Asked Questions

What age is this book for?
Roughly six to twelve. The steps are short, the motifs are large, and the tone throughout is Amma explaining something to Prakash. Younger children will need help reading the story pages but can do the drawing on their own.
Does my child need to know how to draw?
No. Baiga painting does not reward neat lines, and the book says so on the page. Figures are drawn for what they are doing rather than what they look like, so a wobbly deer is still a deer.
What art supplies do we need?
Colour pencils or poster paints and a pencil. The pages take dry and wet media. Baiga artists work with bamboo twig brushes and pigments from clay, turmeric and red soil, and the book explains that, but nothing in it requires those materials.
Who made the artwork in this book?
Jodhaiya Bai Baiga, Sakun Bai Baiga, Ramrati Bai Baiga, Rupa Baiga and Hema Baiga, all from Lorha village in Umaria district, Madhya Pradesh. The Rooftop art research and design teams adapted their paintings into traceable exercises. Reference artworks are credited by title and artist on the page.
What comes after this book?
Artventures of Baiga: Essentials, which covers colour, the deities, the Godna tattoo tradition and harder motifs. Then Expert, which adds the pattern dictionary and full compositions.
Is this the same as a colouring book?
Partly. Several pages are outlines waiting for colour. But the motif sections teach construction step by step, and the story pages carry the actual history of the art form and its tattoos.

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