Traditional West African stamp patterns

As we were studying in our history book about the slave trafficing from African countries to the New World (Americas), we also learned that the people of West Africa often used a traditional technique to decorate clothing and other items. This technique, called adinkra, separated the items to be decorated into squares and then stamped patters onto each square. So we decided to try this technique out ourselves.

What we used:
simple A4 printer paper
poster paints
potatoes out of which we cut stamps of different shapes
ruler and pencil

What we did:
1. We divided the paper into 1" x 1/2" rectangles. We had 8 columns and 11 rows.
2. We used different stamps and colours for making our patterns.

Here are some photos of how and what we did to make our adinkras.

Uzair and Hafsa at work.

Some of our potato stamps.

Hafsa's pattern.

 

Mamma's pattern.

Uzair's pattern.

All three paterns together.