National Gallery of Art NGAkids Catlin activity

Make your own jewelry and headdress with colored paper, fabric scraps, and craft materials at home. Here are a few ideas.

1.Uncooked pasta of different shapes can be dyed and strung on string or wire to make necklaces and earrings. If you want to use shell pasta or another kind that doesn't have a hole in it, soak it first, then make a hole to string it, and then let the pasta dry and harden. Hang your "bead earrings" from two big loops of yarn that can fit around your ear

2.Turn construction paper into a colorful American Indian-style headdress. Make feathers of different sizes and colors and attach them to a band that you decorate with a pattern. You could make jewelry with real beads and make a headdress using real feathers, if you have them available.

George Catlin, See-non-ty-a, an Iowa Medicine Man (detail), 1844/1845, National Gallery of Art, Paul Mellon Collection (right)

George Catlin, Ojibbeway Indians in Paris (detail), 1861/1869, National Gallery of Art, Paul Mellon Collection (left)