It’s Not a Boulder, It’s a Rock!

Everyone has hobbies like sports, outdoor activities like hiking or lake activities like boating. 

But not everyone knows of an outdoor activity called rock painting. 

Rock painting is a hobby that some people have that gets them out of the house and go places.

It’s a pretty simplistic concept: you just paint rocks as best as you can and you switch them out whenever you find them and place them where people can find them or you can paint on a giant rock and make art.

When you paint a rock and you find one somewhere, you replace the one you found with the one you painted and keep exchanging each rock in every location with a rock found in the previous.

Some fun rock facts, according to archeology.uark.edu, are that, “Anthropologists and archaeologists define rock art as images carved, drawn, or painted onto immovable rock surfaces.”  

Archeology.uark.edu also states that, “Images that are carved or engraved into rock are called petroglyphs. Images made with paint or other pigment are called pictographs.” This stuff is an interesting hobby for some people. 

Yashodhar Mathpal is an extremely well known rock painter, archaeologist, painter, curator, Gandhian and Rock art conservationist. He also built a museum called the “Lok Sanskriti Sangrahalaya” in Uttarakhand, Nainital.

The reason he built the museum is because, “If not protected, then nothing will be left to show the later generations. So, I wanted to build a place where I can collect and display the art and let people know about our roots.”

Rock painting has been around for thousands of years. People used it in the “caveman ages” for design, mapping, and culture. Getty.edu states “…paintings and engravings on rock are seen as an important part of the spiritual inheritance and identity of Indigenous people, their descendants and those who are custodians of sites today.”

When you see a rock and you happen to have one on you, switch them out. For some people they are a therapy, they paint rocks to find new ones and examine them. All rocks are meant to be positive or pretty/unique in their own ways. 

They send a message, the reason being because you will have that rock with you until you find a new one.

Not all hobbies last, but in the moment they are fun and they help get people into trying new things. Kids normally enjoy it because they love playing with colors and making designs.