Aboriginal art wasn't just paintings. Indigenous artists created pictures and designs on canvases such as sand, timber and stone. They would made sculptures, paint on their bodies, craft jewelry and clothing. Decorations on tools and weapons were also found in Indigenous art. The designs where usually symbolic and where not made to look like something. For at least 20,000, stories of The Dreaming where found on the walls of stone shelters and in caves. Symbolic significance was a common thing in Aboriginal paintings. Things that where spiritually important to artists where painted to a specific area of land. Art helped strengthen the connection between the land and Aboriginal peoples. The ends of brushed where often chewed or hammered so that the ends would become frayed for painting. Alternate methods were to tie hair and feathers to a stick or just simply use their fingers to paint a surface. Molded clay or charcoal were also used as pencils and even sometimes paint was spat out of the mouth to produce a sort of spraying or template effect. Colours where also very limited in the time of Indigenous artists, the basic colours where red, yellow, brown, white, black and grey. Depending on the area, colours would come from sources. Ochre was a mixture iron, lime and clay was made to use as a red. Lime and clay would produce the colour white. Black would come from simply just charcoal. Paints made from these materials were also traded for other materials between some Indigenous groups. There were many different styles in Aboriginal society such as body painting, bark paintings, earth or sand paintings, and cave or stone shelter art. There were also patterns and designs that would be painted on objects like boomerangs and shields. Depending on the Indigenous group designs and styles varied over Australia, mainly due to the different access to resources and cultural practices. Mimi is a form of art produced mainly in the northern area of Australia, Mimi’s are thin, small spiritual people who lived in the face of the rocks. Mimi’s keep their spiritual power through the Indigenous people repainting them from time to time. Like all other forms of Aboriginal culture, the British did not understand the meaning of the indigenous art. Art was a tool used as a visual impression of their beliefs and the way of their life. By understanding Indigenous art, we can gain a broader understanding of what Indigenous culture was like before 1788.