Home > Adventure >   Australian Aboriginal Skink and Frog Shirt
Take a look...	Price: $35.95 Stock Status: In Stock Availability: Usually Ships in 24 to 72 Hours Product Code: MS-SKINK Size First, Select Size

About the Design Sizing Chart and Care   This is a conversation piece, no doubt about it. As people stare at your shirt you can choose to engage them in a discussion of Aboriginal art, pointing out that this is done in the Northern Territory “X-ray” style which emphasizes outlines of animals, decorated with stylized patterns that often seem to suggest bones and viscera. But if you are more of a naturalist, vs. an anthropologist, when they point out “You’ve got a lizard on your shirt” you can smugly add, “Actually it’s a blue tongued Australian skink.” And indeed, right there is the skink’s blue tongue! The Skink and Frog design will continue to amaze you as you notice new details each time you look at it. Most will completely overlook that the pattern is overrun with tiny frogs, because they are a dark grey on black detail. Because of the distinctive nature of this large print, each shirt is unique with how the pattern falls across it. Your shirt may differ from the one pictured. In a way, every Skink and Frog shirt will be a one-of-a-kind. Our aboriginal art shirts feature prints designed by Aboriginal artists with the fabric produced in Australia, the shirt made in the USA. But even when I was in Australia, I never came across anything more than Aboriginal art featured on T-shirts, so we’re excited to present wearable art on such a nice shirt. Over the last ten years, I’ve finally chosen the two designs you see on our sight as two of the best. MORE ABOUT ABORGINAL ART Aboriginal art dates back to ceremonial sand paintings, utilizing seeds, flowers, sand, stones, feathers and other natural substances. Like all ceremonial art, it is full of ritual in how it is created, and highly symbolic in it’s meaning. Only male clan members were involved in creating art and allowed to know it’s sacred meaning. Even today, as Aboriginal art hits Western markets, the details behind the symbols are still kept secret within the clan. Traditional Aboriginal art can usually be categorized into three styles: X -ray art, from the Northern Territory, displays “cross-sections” of animals – showing the animal’s skeleton and viscera through stylized patterns. The Skink and Frog shirt falls into this category. Dot painting creates symbols and patterns with dots, which according to one resource I read was heavily developed after the 1970s when Aboriginal artists wanted to protect their sacred art from outsiders and began to cover their symbolic paintings with dots which helped mask the original, sacred picture. I can’t comment on the credibility of that source, but it’s an interesting story. Our Sacred Snake print is done in the dot dot style. Stenciling is the center of the third style – especially using handprints and then creating patterns around these stencils. MORE ABOUT SKINKS Skinks are the most diverse group of lizards. The Australian blue tongued skink is a large lizard (17-24 inches in length) with a long body, large head and small legs with delicate toes. The tail is shorter than the body and generally tapers to a point. Color consists of a pattern of dark brown bars on a light brown or cream background; orange bars alternate with brown on the sides. They have a faint eye stripe and a cobalt-blue tongue. They are omnivorous, eating a variety of insects, snails, carrion, flowers and fruits. They are not very agile and the animals they eat are mostly slow moving. For an anatomical diagram, check out this link:http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/reptiles/lizard/Bluetonguedskink.shtml Made in the USA. Additional keywords: Red, black, dot, lizard, Aussie, dot dot