Endangered Species Prints

This was a popular lesson with my 7th graders. They learned about Andy Warhol's Endangered Species prints and researched the Endangered Species Act before choosing a species that is currently threatened or endangered to focus their artwork. 

I uploaded the lesson plan and all the resources on the smARTteacher!

We used polyfoam plates and students engraved their designs with a wood stylus. They tried out printing with markers and with relief ink.

To print with markers, color directly on the foam plate, wet your drawing paper with a damp sponge, then place the paper damp side down on top of the plate and rub the back to transfer the image.

Next, the students used relief ink. They could do one color or multiple. The students got really in to printmaking! Some that finished their first prints early and became the class experts, helping others. They wanted to do printmaking the rest of the year!

The last part of the assignment was to create a display that had a photo of and facts about their animal, an artist statement, and their best print.

Computer Graphics Gelli Stencils

One of the 12 Days of Photoshop challenges in my Computer Graphics Class first semester was to use Photoshop to create a stencil or a mask for use in gelli printing. I have a class set of student gelli plates that are 5x5 inches and brought mine from home in several different sizes.
Most students found they could do this without using photoshop so they just printed their designs and used a blade to cut out the space they didn't want.
The volleyball at the top was created with a mask and a stencil. The student used a mask to block out the circle and a stencil to create the lines on the volleyball.

I really like the painterly look of the Google monoprint.

The love the bird print. The circles in the background are the ghost print of a stencil. She placed the bird mask over the plate to pull this print.

Layered Monoprinting Video

One of my art teacher friends has Friday Fun Days where the students take a break from their regular projects and do something extra fun (Check out her Facebook page "Mrs.Strnad's Art Classsssssss"). Last fall she asked me and some other teachers if we would create a short video with a project to show her students so we would serve as virtual visiting artists. I knew I wanted to do something with monoprinting since they have a class set of Gelli plates and I finally got around to it today before making valentines with my 5 year old. I demonstrated the same technique I've shown to students from grade school to high school!

So, without further adieu, here is my goofy little mono printing demo. I hope it's helpful to someone!

1st Grade Collagraphs

Collagraph is a type of printmaking that involves preparing the plate by gluing textured materials into a composition before inking the surface and printing. There's a good little summary HERE. 

In all of my printmaking experience, I'd never tried collagraphs before. While planning lessons utilizing recycled materials at the end of the school year, I couldn't resist the urge anymore and gave it a go. I picked 1st grade to try the technique, mainly because I hadn't decided on anything else yet! In the future, I will probably reserve collagraph for a higher grade because of the difficulty in inking a plate that is not flat.

I had many of the same materials from the Recycled Art Challenge 2nd and 3rd grade students participated in available for 1st graders. Pretty much any flat-ish material that you can cut and glue will work. Here are some materials we used:

• paper scraps
• yarn
• paperboard saved from cereal boxes
• burlap
• bubble wrap
• corrugated paper (I found a whole roll from an old bulletin board kit)

Other necessary materials are scissors, bottled glue, printing paper, block printing ink, brayers, and trays for ink.

We cut the materials into shapes, arranged onto a board (we used a dense fiberboard but you could use cardboard instead), and glued in place. This is not a time to skimp on glue! Elmer's glue held most things in place just fine, but the bubble wrap sometimes peeled off when the brayer went over it. I'm not sure, but it's possible another kind of glue may have worked better.

In the 2nd class when the glue was dry, we inked the plates and pulled 2 prints. I don't have enough brayers for each student so I put one tray (we use cookie sheets) of ink and one brayer in the middle of each table. Students at each table took turns printing and helped remind each other of the steps.

The first print was done on 50# drawing paper and the second print was on copy paper. I ordered a case of brightly colored copy paper just for printmaking.

I've found the easiest way to glue yarn onto a surface is to draw the design with bottled glue before tapping the yarn into place.

I don't know about you, but I'm always scanning recycling bins. Sometimes I grab the negatives from die cut shapes and letters. The scraps yielded some of the sharpest images in the prints.

I think I will try to spend some more time playing with collagraph printing this summer.

Positive and Negative Leaf Prints

I've purchased enough gelli plates now that I can take them to school and 4 students can print at a time. In October, I had a gelli printing station. Each 2nd and 3rd grade student had a chance. I demonstrated a few techniques and then let student choose and combine how they saw fit. The most popular choice was using the positive and negative space of leaves with first generation and ghost prints.

 I had many texture combs, stamps and found objects available for students to use to create their first print. The students came around the printing table, asked me to squirt the color of acrylic paint they wanted to use, rolled it with a brayer, and pulled the print. They also printed the ghost of the texture/pattern.

The students who wanted to play with the positive and negative space then chose a second paint color, rolled it out, arranged a leaf or several vein side down, and chose one of their printed papers to print on AGAIN. Next, they removed the leaf and printed the ghost. The paper with the leaf ON the plate will have the negative space in the shape of a leaf, which acted as a mask. The ghost will have the positive space showing the texture of the veins. Gelli plates show a lot of detail and texture so this pretty much always turns out cool. Different print combinations- first/first, ghost/ghost, first/ghost, ghost/first yield different results. The students enjoyed exploring and playing with the possibilities.

You can see the lesson plan on the smARTteacher.

 Some students tried different ideas- layering textures or images drawn with cotton swabs.

You can make a homemade gelatin plate for printing, but I've never tried it. I've heard good things about it but buying some plates with Blick gift coupons was a quicker choice for me! I now have gelatin plates in 8x10, 6x6, 5x7, 3x5, and the 8 inch circle. I haven't even had time to try out the circle plate yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

2nd Grade Indian Elephants

My second grade project for our Cultural Heritage study on India this year involved learning about the significance of elephants in Indian culture and the beautiful block printing method used for textiles. The students created stamps out of cardboard and foam and used that the create a patterned background. Then, the students drew elephants and glued them in the center of the printed background. I typed the lesson up to share on the smARTteacher in November. You can see the complete lesson HERE. 

Procedure:

1. Introduction
-Briefly talk about India, show location on map
-Explain that art is infused into Indian culture
-Block printed textiles from India are very beautiful and detailed. Explain and look at pictures of fabric and printing process.
2. Show how to make a stamp with cardboard and foam (instead of carving wood like most of the blocks from India.) Remind students that they have to cut shapes instead of lines. "Lines" can be made by cutting very thin shapes.
3. Students cut foam shapes, check with teacher, and then glue to cardboard when approved.
4. Print stamps
-Students choose construction paper
-Use paintbrush to apply black tempera to stamps (this helps my students not get too much)
-Start in a corner and stamp along edges first.
-Talk about how rotating or flipping the stamp can create a different kind of pattern.
-Filling in middle is optional. Just printing a "frame" also looks nice.
5. Introduce Indian elephants
-Look at pictures of Indian elephants and artwork including elephants
-Elephants were the traditional mode of transportation for Indian royalty
6. Make elephants
-Students draw Indian elephants on 6x9 inch white paper
-Trace pencil drawings with sharpie
-Color elephants with crayons or colored pencils
7. Cut out elephants
-Remind students to turn the paper, not their scissor hand, and to be careful with dangly parts like the tail and trunk
8. Glue elephants in center of printed papers

- See more at: http://www.thesmartteacher.com/exchange/resource/1405/Indian-Elephants#sthash.pgcPE7Zu.dpuf

I love how the printed papers turned out. Some students flipped or rotated to create more complex patterns. Lots of good math connections.

A lot of "India" projects I've seen use elephant tracers... while my students' elephants may not look like you'd expect, it was more important to me for them to practice looking and drawing than to have a perfect elephant. Besides, look at all the personality!

4th Grade Choice Printmaking

I'm trying to finish up posting some projects leftover from last spring before I'm overrun with new projects! For the first year ever, each of my intermediate grades had a chance to print. When you only see students 18 times in the whole year, it can be tricky to fit in everything that you want to. The printmaking project was totally open for 4th grade, meaning that there was no suggested theme. I did talk to the students about their plans before they began to transfer the drawing onto the foam. 

 Some students made nonobjective designs while others focused on interests. I enjoy both.

Tomorrow night I'll be offering printmaking as a hands-on activity during my community's art walk. I'm excited to share printmaking with kids and families in the community since so many people have never had the chance to try it out.