Warli Art for Kids: A Step-by-Step Guide with Simple Patterns

Of all India’s folk art traditions, Warli may be the easiest for a child to begin. It uses only a few basic shapes, a circle, a triangle, a line and a dot, and a single colour, white, on an earthy background. And yet, with those simple pieces, Warli artists paint whole villages: people dancing, farming, fishing, celebrating weddings and walking in the forest. A child who learns to draw one Warli figure can, within an hour, be painting a whole scene.

Where Warli comes from

Warli art is the traditional painting of the Warli people, an Adivasi community living mainly in the hills and forests of the Palghar and Thane districts of Maharashtra, north of Mumbai, and in neighbouring areas. For generations, Warli women painted the mud walls of their homes for weddings, harvests and important occasions. The walls were coated with a mixture of earth and cow dung, often with red earth called geru, and the paintings were made in white with a paste of ground rice and water, applied with a chewed bamboo twig used as a brush.

One of the most important traditional Warli paintings is the chauk, a square frame painted for weddings, often enclosing the image of a mother goddess associated with fertility and the harvest. Around it, the artist would paint scenes of everyday life.

In the second half of the twentieth century, artists such as Jivya Soma Mashe began painting Warli on paper and canvas, and the art became known across India and around the world. Mashe was awarded the Padma Shri in 2011. Today Warli patterns appear on walls, fabrics, pots and book covers everywhere, but the art remains, first of all, a living tradition of the Warli people.

The three basic shapes

Warli art is built from three shapes, and each traditionally carries meaning. The circle is often linked with the sun and the moon. The triangle is linked with mountains and trees. The square, the chauk, marks a sacred space. Children enjoy learning that even the simplest shape in a painting can stand for something.

How to draw a Warli person

This is the key skill, and it takes just a few steps. First, draw two triangles, one pointing down and one pointing up, touching at their tips, like an hourglass. The top triangle is the chest and the bottom one is the hips. Second, draw a small circle above the top triangle for the head, with a short line for the neck if you like. Third, add arms and legs as simple lines, bent at the elbows and knees to show movement. That is a Warli person.

Now try making the person do something. Raise one arm to wave. Bend both arms to carry a pot on the head. Spread the legs to show walking or dancing. Lean the triangles to one side to show someone pulling or pushing. Changing just the lines of the arms and legs brings the figure to life.

Other simple Warli elements

Trees: a straight trunk with many short lines branching off, or a tall triangle with leaves drawn as small dots or strokes. Houses: a square with a triangle roof. The sun: a circle with short lines around it. Animals: a cow, a deer or a dog drawn as a horizontal triangle body on stick legs, with a small head. Birds: two small curved lines, like a flattened V. Fish: an oval with a triangle tail.

Project 1: the tarpa dance circle

One of the most famous Warli images shows dancers in a spiral or circle, holding hands, around a musician playing the tarpa, a long wind instrument made from a dried gourd. Draw a small figure in the centre holding a long instrument. Then draw a spiral starting close to the musician and moving outwards. Along the spiral, draw Warli people side by side, holding hands, all facing the same way, getting a little bigger as the spiral grows. Children love how the circle seems to spin.

Project 2: a village scene

Draw a large circle for the sun at the top. Add two or three houses, a few trees and some animals. Then fill the scene with people: someone carrying water, someone ploughing with a bullock, children playing, women grinding grain. Warli paintings are traditionally full and busy, with little empty space, so encourage your child to keep adding life to the picture.

Project 3: a Warli diya or pot

Paint a clay diya or a small terracotta pot in brown or terracotta red. Once it is dry, add a band of tiny Warli dancers holding hands around it in white. This makes a lovely gift for Diwali or a birthday.

Warli art shows that you do not need many colours or complicated shapes to tell a story. You need a circle, two triangles, a few lines, and something to say.

Materials for children

You do not need rice paste and mud walls to start. For paper: use brown kraft paper, red-brown chart paper or dark paper, and a white gel pen, white poster paint with a fine brush, or a white paint marker. For a more traditional look, paint plain paper with a wash of brown or terracotta poster paint first, let it dry, then draw in white. A cotton bud dipped in white paint is perfect for dots and for younger children.

Tips for young artists

Start with figures before scenes. Fill a page with Warli people doing different things: running, dancing, carrying, sitting. Once your child is confident with the figure, scenes come naturally.

Keep the lines thin and even. Warli figures look best when they are small and delicate.

Tell a story. Ask your child what is happening in their painting: is it a wedding, a harvest, a festival? The story will tell them what to draw next.

Respect the source. When children share their Warli art, encourage them to say where it comes from: the Warli people of Maharashtra. Learning to credit a tradition is part of learning it.

From Warli to other folk arts

Warli is a wonderful first folk art, and it opens the door to many others: Madhubani from Bihar, Gond from Madhya Pradesh, Kalamkari from Andhra Pradesh and Pattachitra from Odisha. Each has its own shapes, colours and stories. Our live arts and painting classes for children explore these traditions step by step. If you would like your child to learn with a mentor, enquire about our classes through the Book a Class page; fees are listed on our Pricing page.