The Creative braid

French Braid

A triadic braid is a common motif that crosses many cultures throughout the world. It can be seen in everyday life in diverse places such as hair styles, rugs, and rope manufacture. In fine art it is used as an element of ornamentation. The idea of braiding or entwining various strands stems from the need to make one strand stronger by adding another strand and another etc. The manner in which these strands are entwined is very creative since the element of colour and texture can be used to create variety in the braid.

Fish Tail Braid

4 Strand Braid

Figuratively braiding can be seen in society where the different cultures mingle yet maintain their identity like in multi-cultural Trinidad and Tobago, there are East Indians, Africans, Europeans, Chinese, Syrians, South Americans. Yet we all celebrate Divali with our Hindu brothers because they are a part of the national culture.

The hair braiding varies from 3 strands to 5 strands and is used from everyday hair styling of kindergarten school girls to elaborate high fashion hair styling. Throughout time we can think of epic images of Star Wars character Princess Leia, Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ, Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and numerous musicians Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, snoop dog, all of whom have made a mark on the hair styling scene because of their fame.

Three of my students were given an assignment to use the elements of line, colour and an achromatic colour scheme to depict a triadic braid made up of common materials such as wire, ribbon and cord. The flexibility of the braid and the various degrees of the tightness of the woven strands are aptly depicted using the mediums of pencil, colour pencil, pen and markers.


 These dry media allowed the artists good control of the subtle value changes due to the circular nature of the strands. The use of different coloured pens captures the fragility of the lace strand in the braid with ribbons and lace. One can almost feel the smoothness of the wire used in the green coloured braid, this artist showed good skill in his use of media. The artist created good composition in her arrangement of positive and negative space where she allows the braid to weave across her canvas creating a variety of angular negative shapes; the flexibility of the braid is well showcased in this composition.