Sand painting

📖 In short

Sand painting is an art where pictures and shapes are made from colored sand. The Navajo, Native Americans of the southwestern United States, are famous for it, and other peoples around the world do it in their own ways.

🤩 Did you know?

Artists make colored sand from crushed rocks and stones.
Making a big sand painting can take several days.
Today some artists use sand on a light table to tell moving stories.
You can make a sand painting with glue and colored sand on cardboard.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Navajo sand paintings

Navajo artists make pictures on the floor of the house with colored sand, charcoal and ground stones during traditional ceremonies hoping for healing and good things. Then they wipe away the picture when the ceremony ends.

🔍 How do they draw?

The artist takes a little sand between their fingers and lets it trickle out slowly in a thin line, drawing lines and shapes very precisely without a brush.

💡 Sand bottles

In Jordan, near Petra, artists make wonderful pictures of colored sand inside glass bottles, drawing camels, desert and palm trees with nothing but sand!

🎯 Art that doesn't last

Some sand paintings are wiped away after they're made, like those of Tibetan monks who spend days making a detailed sand circle, then sweep it away to remember that things don't last.

🧩 Test yourself

1 What does the artist make a sand painting with?

2 Near which Arab city are sand pictures made in bottles?

3 Which picture shows “Sand painting”?