Lighthouse Collagraph Printmaking Project by small hands big art
Kids learn about the fine art of printmaking using flat pieces of styrofoam, tempera paint, and rollers to make prints.
This week, 4th will be starting their background for the Collagraph printmaking project! This was inspired by the fabulous @Mrsdow_Artroom! Give her a follow on Instagram! After they finish their background, they'll start gluing the foam shapes onto their square printing plate. Videos and how to below! Materials: Speedball ink Brayer 90 lb paper Wonderfoam shapes school smart fluorescent paint Big Kid's Choice paintbrushes Elmer's Glue-all This background was done with School Smart Washable Fluorescent Paint Here's a short time lapse video on how to paint your background! These backgrounds were done with Sax Liquid Watercolors (SIDE NOTE: REGULAR FOAM DOESN'T WORK FOR THIS PROJECT! IT FALLS OFF!) ALSO: Make sure you start in the corner of your square and work your way out! Make both sides match or be symmetrical! Like this one! Here's a little time lapse of me creating another printing plate MAKE SURE YOU USE A DIFFERENT KIND OF FOAM, LIKE THESE WONDERFOAM SHAPES!! or these Darice sticky foam sheets would work well too! & no glue needed! Here's a time lapse of me gluing the shapes on. Start in one corner and work your way out, making sure both sides match, or are symmetrical! Then, you're ready to ink up and start printing! Make sure you keep your corner design in the middle of your paper as you're rotating! Make a mark on the corner that you want to put in the middle, so you can see it when you're printing! Here's Dr Fambrough's class doing a great job! Here are some awesome artists from Mrs. McAllister's class!! I was literally shrieking for joy at the way these turned out! Mrs. Stacey is so proud of y'all!!! <3 Here are some prints from Mrs. Fambrough's class!
In this post I will explain the basic steps of making linocuts at home without a press. I love the craft of linoleum printing and I hope you will tempted to try it as well.
Sun prints are so easy, fun, and exciting to make with kids. They are also called cyanotypes and can be made on fabric as well as paper.
Let me start out by saying this has been one of the most successful and visually stunning projects that I've ever done with my students. It is definitely the most exciting printmaking project that we've ever done at Thomas. I wrote the lesson and went into the project thinking that it would probably be pretty good. I told my students that I'm absolutely blown away by the results of their talent and hard work. This lesson is a keeper. My previous 4th grade printmaking lesson was decent, but not outstanding. It was too similar from an art-making perspective to the Wild Things I do with my 2nd graders. This year, I really wanted to push the medium a little more by printing with multiple colors. I ended up deciding to push it to three colors and add in a little vocab by also bringing in the use of complimentary colors. Check out the lesson plan here! Close up of the piece above. Wow. Whew. That was a lot of examples, right? I just couldn't help myself this time. They were all so good that I had to show them off. If you're still reading, you're in luck. I'm going to tell you how I did this project and I'm going to use pictures! Let your inner kid rejoice. Start with a drawing of whatever you want to print. I had my kids do animal portraits. I gave them each a piece of the foam they would be printing on, then had them trace around it to give them the size of the final artwork. I then collected the foam for use the following week. Tape your drawing over the printing foam and use a dull pencil or other blunt tool to press down on the lines of just the outline of the subject. Take the paper off and press down again to make sure the marks are deep enough to make proper prints. I had my students make sure they ended up with three good prints of the background on the first day of printing. Re-tape the original drawing the following class. Press down any remaining details. Cut out the subject along the line that was pressed down last time. Now print with this piece directly on top of the original prints. I had my students use at least one set of complimentary colors. On the final day of printing, cut out a small detail that makes sense to print in a third color. Then, you guessed it, print this piece right on top of the original prints. This was my demo piece I did with the materials above.
This step-by-step block printing lesson teaches how to do linocut and foam printing with your students complete with block printing supplies and videos.
Very cool printmaking ideas and inspiration for printmaking projects.
PRINTMAKING WITH KIDS + LAKESHORE LEARNING REVIEW
Try out this classroom friendly styrofoam printmaking art lesson with full length tutorials inspired by music and the Harlem Renaissance!
I fell in love with printmaking back in college and my favorite printing process is monotyping- drawing or painting on a smooth non absorbent surface and then transferring it to paper. A monotype produces a completely unique print with a process that is unpredictable, expressive, painterly and totally unlike any other creative process. There are all kinds of tools and supplies for monotypes (acrylic printing plates, the Gelli plate, etc) but really any slick surface will work- even something as simple as a plastic bag! PRINT with plastic bags from Alisa Burke on Vimeo. I like to start by "inking up" a plastic bag with either a brayer or a paint brush. You can can use printing ink, acrylic paint or even fabric paint if printing on fabric surfaces. There are all kinds of ways to get expressive on the surface- you can scratch into the paint with a toothpick, old paint brush or the end of a pencil. You can pull paint away (subtractive method) with a cotton swap or a rag. You can even add paint and brush strokes to the surface. Once you are satisfied its time to print by simply placing the plastic bag onto your surface. I like to roll my brayer over it a couple of times and peel the bag away from the surface. You are left with a print! If you are lucky and there is still enough ink on the bag you are able to get a second print- called a "ghost print". Since I tend to work more messy and abstract I like to start by adding layers of prints on top of each other to create a background full of color and texture. And then I go back into my surface with adding a final layer of pattern (typically flowers or shapes inspired by nature). Interested in learning more about printmaking? I've got a fun new mini class called Print.Make.Play. Check out all the details HERE
Negative leaf print by one of my second grade students earlier this year. Hey, guys! This post has been very popular on my blog...if you are interested in other leaf-y projects, look at my Leaf Relief project and my Pressed Leaf Project as well. Thanks! I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Tennessee, we are experiencing spring-like weather. For the most part. I mean it did snow the last two Saturdays (and, in Tennessee, "snow" means just a few flakes and a couple of inches) but the other day it was 78 degrees. Crazy, right? For that reason, I've got touch of spring fever. You too? Well then you might enjoy this leafy printmaking project I did at the beginning of the year with my second graders. It's simple, scientific, beautiful and fun...okay, enough talking about me (!), on with the lesson. For this project, you'll need the following: gelatin, not Jell-o. Most grocery stores carry a brand called Knox which sells in boxes of 16 pouches. cookie sheets printmaking brayer, sold at most craft stores printing ink variety of leaves paper Print pulled from the same printing tray, this time the positive version. The night before you begin, you'll need to prepare your sheets of gelatin. To do that, bring about 3-4 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, whisked one pouch of gelatin into the pot. You don't want any clumps of gelatin, so whisk like there's no tomorrow. You'll end up adding about 12-15 pouches of gelatin into that one pot. Sorry, I'm not into exact measurements. Which could explain a lot about my cooking. If there are any remaining unwhiskable clumps, remove them with a spoon. Pour mixture into a cookie sheet filling it about 1". Leave uncovered over night. If you see any bubbles in the cookie sheet, pop them or remove with a spoon. For my class of 20 students, I made three trays. Pulling the first print always managed to get oohhhh's and aahhhh's aplenty. The following day, we were ready to print. The surface of the gelatin was squishy yet very firm, perfect for holding our printing ink. I think I can explain this best in steps, so here you go: Using a brayer and printing ink, cover surface of gelatin in ink. Place leaves onto the ink-covered cookie sheet with the veiny side down. I don't recommend using anything with pine needles because that will puncture the gelatin. But experiment, you never know! Once leaves are in place, lay paper on top of cookie sheet and rub (er, we call it "massage") the paper. Pull paper off, as you see in the above photo, and viola! You have your first print! Notice how clear the gelatin looks. All of the ink that was once on the tray is now on the paper. I love her dainty fingers pulling up the second print. So sweet. Now for the second print: Gently remove all of the leaves from the tray. It's best to pull them out by the end of the stem. Place a new sheet of paper over the now-empty cookie sheet and rub. Pull second print which will be a positive image of the first. Looks like a black and white photo, don't you think? Once both prints have been pulled, re-ink the tray and begin the process all over again. With a class of 20 students and 3 pans of gelatin, about 10 kids were able to print per half an hour class. The pans of gelatin can last about two days with an endless amount of printing. I tried to cover the gelatin and keep it for a little longer, but condensation droplets created strange little craters on the surface. If left uncovered for too many days, it begins to dry and crack. For that reason, if you plan to do this project for longer than a couple of days, you'll just need to prepare more gelatin pans the night before. Our second go-round of printing involved using white ink on black paper. Just as pretty. This project is so easy and the results so stunning that everyone is successful. I've now had a couple of craft get-togethers and this is always a hit. Once those leaves start growing in your neck of the woods, I do hope you'll give it a shot! I love the photo negative quality of this print.
Here is a fun printmaking project inspired by artist Paul Klee and his painting Castle and Sun. Do your kids watch Little Einsteins? My little girl loves them and was watching them the other day. If you do watch them, you know that they feature an artist and a composer each episode. Paul Klee was […]
Read below to find out how we created these, see step-by-step pics and watch my YouTube tutorial on this lesson! Printmaking is one of my favorite things to teach in art. I love it because it alway…
This foil pritntmaking method produces monoprints but the foil printing plate can be used over and over. Foil prints are a great experience for any age!
A simple way to introduce children to the magic of making prints.
Can you believe we only have 8 days of school left? Where did this year go? Looking back on all of the projects that we completed, I am very pleased with the quality and quantity of work that my students produced. I truly believe that I have the most talented, wonderfully amazing students in the world! While looking back over all of the projects, I was shocked and a little upset with myself that we didn't do printmaking this year. While in college, I LOVED printmaking. I even did an independent study in it and my entire senior art exhibition was printmaking. We did printmaking in 7th grade last year but I wanted to kick it up a notch this year and make it a bit more challenging. I decided to try reduction printmaking! For this project, I took a picture of the students and used paint.net to posterize the photos into 3 colors (black, grey and white). Students shaded on the back and transferred all of their white areas onto the linoleum. We use easy carve linoleum at school and it's so easy for the kids. We haven't had any slips (or bad cuts) this year! Students used the gauge to carve away all of the areas of their print that would be left white. Since we were printing on white paper, we didn't need to print this part. All that would be left would be the grey and black areas. They chose a color and mixed it with some white to make a tint. Then students pulled a proof. A proof is a practice print so they can see what it would look like. If they were happy with their proof, they could pull 10 or more quality prints. The students discussed what made a quality print and here is their list... enough ink, no white spots linoleum carved away where it was meant to be carved away (no stray marks) Ink has an orange peel texture No finger prints No smudges (where the paper slipped on the plate) After they printed 10 or more quality prints, they had to carve away all of the grey area, leaving only the black areas to print. They then mixed a shade of ink and printed on top of their first prints. Here is the final result
Explore LBPrintmaker's 301 photos on Flickr!
"Edgar Degas: A Strange Beauty," at the Museum of Modern Art, shows us the wild and experimental adventures in printmaking that defined the artist's late career.
Can you believe we only have 8 days of school left? Where did this year go? Looking back on all of the projects that we completed, I am very pleased with the quality and quantity of work that my students produced. I truly believe that I have the most talented, wonderfully amazing students in the world! While looking back over all of the projects, I was shocked and a little upset with myself that we didn't do printmaking this year. While in college, I LOVED printmaking. I even did an independent study in it and my entire senior art exhibition was printmaking. We did printmaking in 7th grade last year but I wanted to kick it up a notch this year and make it a bit more challenging. I decided to try reduction printmaking! For this project, I took a picture of the students and used paint.net to posterize the photos into 3 colors (black, grey and white). Students shaded on the back and transferred all of their white areas onto the linoleum. We use easy carve linoleum at school and it's so easy for the kids. We haven't had any slips (or bad cuts) this year! Students used the gauge to carve away all of the areas of their print that would be left white. Since we were printing on white paper, we didn't need to print this part. All that would be left would be the grey and black areas. They chose a color and mixed it with some white to make a tint. Then students pulled a proof. A proof is a practice print so they can see what it would look like. If they were happy with their proof, they could pull 10 or more quality prints. The students discussed what made a quality print and here is their list... enough ink, no white spots linoleum carved away where it was meant to be carved away (no stray marks) Ink has an orange peel texture No finger prints No smudges (where the paper slipped on the plate) After they printed 10 or more quality prints, they had to carve away all of the grey area, leaving only the black areas to print. They then mixed a shade of ink and printed on top of their first prints. Here is the final result
I have found some wonderful examples of the art of the collagraph on two blogs: one by Aijung Kim, and the other is by Bonnie Murray. Bonnie gives a very thorough description of her technique on h…
This cross curricular unit started with a question: How can I incorporate printmaking in my art class without a printing press and without the budget to buy linoleum or carving tools? Printmaking has always been my weak area in my teaching game. I’ve always felt like it’s a lot of extra work for unpredictable results. Forgive me, printmakers!!!! As an artist, I prefer to draw …
Easy printmaking ideas for preschoolers! These simple kids projects are great for playgroups, older kids, and multi-age homeschool
Printmaking is magical for kids and adults as well. The process of creating an image then transferring that image to another piece of paper is so exciting. There are so many different ways to print…
Let me start out by saying this has been one of the most successful and visually stunning projects that I've ever done with my students. It ...
Printmaking is magical for kids and adults as well. The process of creating an image then transferring that image to another piece of paper is so exciting. There are so many different ways to print…
When I tell people I'm a printmaker, it's often followed by the question, "What's that?" My short and sweet answer is that it's playing with big stamps. In truth, it's so much more than that. When you start learning about prints, the jargon, techniques, and terms can be overwhelming—photogravure, pochoir, serigraph, mezzotint, collagraph, linocut. And that's just scratching the surface (pun intended, for all you fellow printers). But when you break it down, all of these fancy names and techniques fall into just a few categories. There are four main categories for traditional printmaking: relief, intaglio, lithography, screenprint. I would say that digital printing is the modern fifth category as well. I'm not sure where this image originated, but I love how concisely it visually represents these four categories. If you would like to learn more about how all of this printmaking business works, MoMA has a super interactive guide that walks you through the basics for each process.
This is a challenging 5th grade Pop Art project for art teachers wanting to infuse literacy into their art lessons. Reinforce onomatopoeia words by studying Andy Warhol's prints and Roy Lichtenstein's comic strip artwork with benday dots. Combine collage, printmaking, and hand lettering techniques into one art lesson!
How to Make Printmaking Easy for Even Your Most Rambunctious Class % %
Try these fun and easy printmaking art lessons for children and join our Art Camp! Fun and easy printmaking art lessons for children Printmaking stretches all the way from our first handprint stamping as toddlers, to the ancient art of woodblock printing practiced in China and Asia, and encompasses lino printing, mono printing, […]
Read below to find out how we created these, see step-by-step pics and watch my YouTube tutorial on this lesson! Printmaking is one of my favorite things to teach in art. I love it because it alway…
Second nine weeks involves printmaking projects for my 3-5 graders - if you follow me on Instagram (@smartestartists), you know we have be...
Kitchen lithography is a fantastic technique that draws from the principles of traditional lithography but uses items found in your kitchen along with just a few standard printmaking items! You can even use a baren to take the print so you can try this at home without a press. A piece of drypoint plastic works …
This awesome lesson will teach your students about balance, symmetry, mandalas, and printmaking with rotational symmetry! Included in this package: Teacher instructions with visuals Abbreviated student instruction sheet Grid paper template handout PowerPoint presentation with animated slides (to help students better visualize concepts and instructions) Links to two excellent videos about mandalas (one is Tibetan monks creating a sand mandala and the other is a girl drawing a mandala while explaining its origins) Sample project pictures with bulletin board display idea A couple more colorful alternative/options Materials needed: Heavy white drawing paper (60lb+) Pencil Scratch art foam squares (2”x2”) See an example here. Paper clip Tape Dull colored pencil Sharpie marker Ink or tempera paint Brayer Rolling surface (Plexiglas works great) If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and/or leave some feedback! :) Check out my Blog, Instagram, and Facebook page for great ideas and giveaways!
