1. Using ochres to make paint
Year 2, unit 3: Mixing things together
Lesson 3
Using ochres to make paint
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2. Ochre is naturally tinted clay used to make pigments (colours) for painting.
The colours of ochre depend on the particular area where they are found. Ochres were traded across Australia by Aboriginal people so that new colours not found locally could be used.
Here are examples of red and white ochre. The black lumps are charcoal.

3. Grinding ochres into powder takes time and patience.
In traditional practices, rocks were made into tools for grinding.

4. After grinding, ochre is mixed with a binding material.
Binders included plant saps, turtle eggs, blood, human spit and water.

5. Pandanus baskets were made from dried leaves and vines and then painted with ochre.
Ochre paints have been used here to personalise baskets made from the leaves and vines of Pandanus trees.

6. A cross boomerang made from wood and vine and painted with ochre.

7. A rainforest shield made from wood and painted with ochre.
The symbols used on this shied had personal significance to the owner and their family group and probably related to the purpose of the shield.

8. A rock painting using ochre.
This rock art is in the West Kimberley region in Western Australia.
Ochre paintings are one of the very important ways in which Aboriginal cultures and histories are passed on to new generations and from one group of Aboriginal Peoples to another. The other significant ways are through story telling, singing, dancing and being shown how to do things by the adults.
©Grant Dixon/Getty Images

9. Image acknowledgements
Slide no.
Image title
Source/author details 2
Natural ochres and charcoal
© Joseph Sambono 3
Pounding red ochre
© Queensland Museum, Gary Cranitch 4
Mixing red ochre 5
Pandanus baskets, 1912–13
Image reproduced courtesy of Museum Victoria 6
Indigenous cross boomerang from Cairns area, 1900
Image reproduced courtesy of Australian Museum 7
Rainforest shield, c1980s 8
Aboriginal rock art in gorge of lower Charnley River, West Kimberley
© Grant Dixon/Getty Images