Motif Design

Lessons

Primary 4 · Creative Arts

Motif Design

4 lessons

Lesson 1 of 4

What Is a Motif?

15 min

Let's begin

Gatete's mother wears a kitenge with the same yellow flower printed on it again and again. On the classroom wall, a black-and-white imigongo panel repeats the same zigzag. "Everything is copying itself!" says Gatete.

He is right. The shape that repeats has a name. Artists call it a motif.

A motif is one small design that repeats

A motif (say "mo-TEEF") is a single shape or small picture that an artist repeats to decorate a surface. When a motif repeats many times, it makes a pattern.

You can find motifs on cloth, baskets, pots, walls, mats and even on the edge of a school certificate.

Types of motifs

Geometric motifs are made of lines and shapes: triangles, zigzags, diamonds, circles and squares.
Plant motifs come from nature: leaves, flowers, seeds and branches.
Animal motifs show animals or parts of them: birds, fish, a cow's long horns.
Abstract motifs are shapes that do not show a real thing, like a spiral or a swirl.

Motifs from Rwanda: imigongo

Imigongo is a Rwandan art that began in the east of the country, around Kibungo. Traditionally, women made it from cow dung mixed with ash. They shaped the mixture into raised patterns on a flat surface, let it harden, and painted it with natural colours: mostly black, white and red. Its motifs are geometric: zigzags, diamonds, triangles and spirals.

Look closely

In the imigongo panels, find a zigzag, a diamond and a set of circles inside circles.
Only a few colours are used. Which ones can you name?
In the Japanese stencil, find the birds and the leaves. Are they geometric motifs or motifs from nature?

Tip

One motif, many times, makes a pattern

Ask about any motif: is it made of shapes (geometric), from a plant, from an animal, or just a swirl (abstract)?

✦

Try it yourself

Try each one first, then tap Show answer to check.

1

What do we call one small design that is repeated to decorate a surface?

Show answerHide answer

Answer: A motif.

2

A cloth has a banana leaf printed on it many times. What type of motif is the leaf?

Show answerHide answer

Answer: A plant motif (a motif from nature).

3

Name two geometric motifs you can find in imigongo.

Show answerHide answer

Answer: Any two of: zigzags, diamonds, triangles, spirals, circles, squares.

4

What were the traditional colours of imigongo?

Show answerHide answer

Answer: Mostly black, white and red.

5

Make it: Walk around your home and find three motifs: on a cloth, a basket and a cup. Draw each one and write its type next to it.

Quick check

What you learned today

A motif is one small design; repeating it makes a pattern.
Motifs can be geometric, plant, animal or abstract.
Imigongo, from eastern Rwanda, uses geometric motifs in black, white and red.

Sources and credits

Imigongo.1 (photo), by Rachelboo2, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, used unchanged.
Stencil (katagami) with birds and plants, by an unknown Japanese stencil maker (19th century), The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 (public domain), used unchanged.
Imigongo, by Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, facts adapted by Ganzaa.

The rest of the lesson, the diagrams and the exercises (Try it yourself and the practice questions) are written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1A motif is one small design that repeats

2Types of motifs

3Motifs from Rwanda: imigongo

4Look closely

Try it yourself

A motif is one small design that repeats

Types of motifs

Motifs from Rwanda: imigongo

Look closely