This picture book is a combination story told in rhyming couplets and a step-by-step painting tutorial to learn how to make Thank You circles. Author-illustrator Dreise engages the reader with figurative drawings of people, and gradually incorporates the iconography of Indigenous art which is familiar to most Australian readers. Endnotes give more information for adults.
Across a double spread, we see an Elder demonstrating a technique on the left-hand page, while on the right, a blank page impersonating the sheet of paper ready to receive marks. As the reader pages through the book, the right-hand images are built up into the final artwork. This combination of artwork invites people to make marks along with the children in the book. Dreise’s own paintings within the book progressively become more complex: colours beyond the ochres of the Elder’s demonstration, and life beyond the dusty earth. These all illuminate the layers of meaning possible with painting as storytelling, and that complex systems of learning can begin with a single mark or dot. Subtle themes of sustainability permeate this process with the demonstrated use of environmental materials, as well.
Kamilaroi man Gregg Dreise has been writing, illustrating and publishing picture books now for ten years. As an educator from Queensland, his writing and art are dedicated to using the culturally appropriate model of learning from Elders. He also addresses a reader’s potential concern over who can make these images and tell these stories. He says: ‘We share this with love and respect for our Culture – not for a modern life of greed / Don’t copy our art for money. It is history, wisdom /That we really need.’
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
