Thursday, January 10, 2019

Printmaking Made Easy

One of my favorite process art activities, (and there are quiet a few) is printmaking!
When I introduce any type of printmaking to my students, we take a dip into the history, the machinery, and modern day items that are created through this process...then we jump in to our materials!


Over the years I've found ways to explore manual printmaking with children and have a collected a few of my favorites. The examples above were used with wooden blocks. I prompted the area by letting the children build with the blocks naturally--vertically. We discussed how we might preserve our towers and castles, and discovered we could "build them" on art board--horizontally!


I've even used printmaking techniques when teaching about famous artists and some art history for the kids. One year, we used cup making to replicate Kandinsky's famous circles, and large lego printing for Klee's geometric pieces.


Lego printing is a super quick activity when you are looking to switch it up in the art area!
Pastel paint colors and black paper really make the art POP!



Recently, we busted out A LOT of found materials to create colorful, textured art.
This is a great project to engage in with recycled materials as well, really adds in the positive aspect of going green and finding secondary uses for plastic!

The above paintings were created with bubble wrap, pool noodles (cut down for smaller hands), plastic forks, large Duplo blocks, paper towel rolls, corks, and the bottoms of plastic bottles.


What has quickly turned out to be one of my FAVORITE projects was this @jgoldcrown inspired heart art. I skipped the standard Valentines crafts and showed off the awesome graffiti art linked above. We manipulated paper towel rolls into abstract hearts and went for it!

These turned out beautifully, and most importantly, my students are now stoked to create our own large scale murals. Almost every parent remarked that they were ready to frame these guys.

Lastly, let's deviate away from the art of stamping materials to create prints:



  Another successful project was introducing the students to large plastic sheets and Q-Tips, inviting them to create their own resist prints! They loved making mirror images, and the fact that they could create multiple copies of their own artwork!
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Head on over to Instagram and checkout my highlights to see some videos I've saved for all of our recent printmaking projects!

Hopefully this recap was helpful, but do tell if you have any other awesome printmaking activities! 





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