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Activities / Warli / Warli Drawing

Warli Drawing

Warli Drawing for Beginners: White Stick Figures on a Terracotta Page

Level
Beginner
Duration
30 - 60 mins
Budget
₹65 – ₹660
Age
6+
State
Maharashtra
Craft
Warli

Materials

  • Brown kraft paper, A4 or US Letter
  • White gel pen, fine tip
  • Pencil, eraser, ruler and tape
  • Scrap paper for resting your hand and testing the pen

Steps

  1. Clear a table and gather your supplies
    Sit at a table with good light and lay out a sheet of brown paper, a pencil, an eraser, a ruler and a white gel pen. Warli art is traditionally painted in white rice paste on a mud-brown wall, so brown paper with white lines copies that look. Put a scrap sheet of paper under your drawing hand so your palm does not smudge the lines. Test the pen on scrap paper first. Common mistake: starting with a pen that skips, which leaves broken lines.
    Tip: If the white pen skips, scribble on scrap paper for 10 seconds and the ink will flow.
  2. Prepare your brown paper background
    Tape an A4 sheet of brown kraft paper to the table by its corners, so it does not slide. If you only have white paper, colour the whole sheet with a brown or terracotta marker or the side of a crayon, going in one direction until the colour is even. Let marker ink dry for 5 minutes. Kraft paper saves time, as it is already brown.
  3. Practise the three Warli shapes on scrap paper
    Warli drawings use only three shapes: a circle, a triangle and a straight line. Draw a row of 5 circles about 1 cm across for heads and suns, a row of 5 triangles about 1.5 cm wide for bodies, and a few straight lines for arms, legs and the ground. Draw each shape in one smooth movement. A few minutes of practice now makes the real drawing much calmer.
  4. Draw one person with two triangles and a circle
    On the scrap sheet, draw a triangle pointing down for the chest, and a second triangle pointing up below it, touching at the tips to make the waist. Each triangle is about 1.5 cm wide and 1.5 cm tall. Add a small circle, about 7 mm across, above the chest for the head. Draw two thin lines for arms and two for legs. This hourglass shape is the Warli body.
    Tip: Draw it ten times. By the tenth, it will flow without you thinking.
  5. Pencil a ring of dancers in the middle of the sheet
    Draw a faint circle about 12 cm across in the centre of the brown sheet. Around the circle's edge, pencil 8 dancers, each about 3 cm tall, with their bodies facing the centre and their arms stretched out to hold the next dancer's hands. This circle dance is known as the tarpa dance. Leave a small empty space in the middle for a sun or a drum. Keep the pencil very light.
  6. Pencil the tree, animals and a hut around the circle
    In the lower left corner, sketch a tree with a vertical line trunk about 6 cm tall and short branches, each ending in a small leaf. Add a bird on a branch, a deer made of an oval body, four lines for legs and a small head with two lines for antlers, and a hut with a square wall and a triangle roof. Place each about 2 cm from the dancers so the picture is not crowded.
  7. Trace everything in one steady line with the gel pen
    Go over the pencil with the white gel pen, one figure at a time. Start at the top left of the sheet and work towards the bottom right if you are right-handed, and the reverse if left-handed, so your hand never drags across wet ink. Draw each line slowly and in one stroke. Fill the triangles with small zigzag lines or leave them as outlines. Do not rub the ink for 5 minutes.
    Tip: Rest your wrist on the table. A steady wrist makes steady lines.
  8. Draw a border of dots, triangles or dashes
    Measure 1.5 cm in from every edge and draw a border with the ruler and pencil. Then fill the border with a repeating pattern, such as a row of dots 4 mm apart, a row of small triangles side by side, or short slanted dashes. Pick one pattern and keep the size even. A border pulls the whole picture together and makes it look finished.
  9. Let the ink dry and erase the pencil
    Wait 10 minutes for the gel ink to dry completely. Then erase the leftover pencil lines gently with a soft eraser, wiping away from the white lines so you do not smear them. If a line smudges, leave it, because Warli drawings are meant to look hand-made. Sign your name in the lower corner and keep the drawing flat or tape it to a wall.

Sustainability

Medium - uses ordinary paper and pens; try recycled kraft or brown paper to skip the colouring step

Safety

Minimal; gel and marker ink can stain clothes