African adire

Made by a student of grade 4

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size


2. crayons


3. liquid watercolour


4. brush


5. ruler


6. pencil

Yoruba women in Nigeria make a type of resist-dyed cloth that they call adire. They make some adire by folding, tying, and/or stitching cloth with raffia before dyeing. This is called adire oniko, after the word for raffia, iko. They also make another type, adire eleko, by painting or stenciling designs on the cloth with starch. Both types are dyed in indigo, a natural blue dye.

The dye-resistant starch can be either painted freehand or stenciled onto the fabric. When freehand painting, the artist usually paints a grid of squares or rectangles onto the fabric first. Then she fills these squares with geometric and representational motifs.

Stenciled patterns are even more diverse. New motifs, both geometric and representational, are constantly being created. They can include everything from simple shapes to elephants, keys, letters, and skyscrapers. The metal stencils are made by men, who sell them to the female adire artists.



Show some pictures of african adire and discuss them. Show African symbols and talk about their meanings.



Students use pencil and ruler to divide their sheets in squares of 5 by 5 cm. Draw with a yellow or white crayon symbols and/or patterns in these squares. Paint the sheet using coloured ink.