Chris Uphues borrowed from Cassie Stephens

student work

 When I spotted this project on Cassie Stephen's blog I knew I had to do it with one of my students.  We were exploring printmaking and I knew printing hearts with TP rolls would be a big hit.  My students also enjoyed learning about a practicing artist and viewing some of his work.  The project took about three weeks, a bit longer than I anticipated but happily most were completed prior to February break.

student work

Mono printing continued

As a follow up to my post on Payon Watercolor Crayon printing here.  I wanted to post a few photos of a group at work.  This was such a successful way to do mono-printing because the students really felt successful.  Not to mention the positive that they were also able to print ghost prints in some instances.  We were using Kutz it and Payons with newsprint.  The only down side is that the Payons do stain the Kutz it but that does not effect future prints.  So here my kids are having a blast!  You could have heard a pin drop except for the delightful exclamations over successful prints!!  This was a terrific activity for the last day before a holiday break.

Print making with Payon Watercolor crayons

 Thanks to Aimee  over at One Happy Art Teacher.  This week she had a post about printing with Payon watercolor crayons.  I am in the middle of a printing lesson with my students so it could have not been more timely.  Her idea was to print with foam that had been incised.  I had just made plates with my fifth grade students and intended to do traditional prints with them this week.  Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any photos of their prints so I will post about that success next week.  However, I immediately hit the classroom and began to experiment with the payons with hopes of discovering other ways I

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 might use them with my students in the other grades, primarily with first graders for mono-printing.  First I tried them on plexi.  I used wet payon by dipping into a container of water and drawing directly on the plexi.  It worked well but no pictures of those because I haven't yet given it a try with the kids.

 But, I planned to use kutz-it and water based makers with my first graders that afternoon and grabbed the payons for that experience instead.  All these examples are student examples with the kutz-it plates.  The kids loved them and were thrilled with their successes.  I had encourage a more abstract approach rather than realistic drawing as you can tell from most of the prints.  We even achieved ghost prints by sprinting with water after the first print was pulled.  The students did dip in water and draw with a wet payon not a dry one.  I did have to scrub the plates to clean them and they are stained.

This is only the products of one class.  I look forward to seeing the results of my other first grade students as we continue with this week.  And, for those looking for you own set of payons, I found them on-line.  It looks like Prang has reintroduced them.  So Aimee, someone is listening!!!!

Shibumi

Google Shibumi and you will find a few different interpretations of it's meaning.   It is a Japanese word that does not have a literal translations.  Loosely it means effortless perfection or a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle and unobtrusive beauty.  Today I experience the art of Shibumi when I visited the Vermont Arts and Crafts Fair in Bennington and the Shibumi Silks craft tent.  I had witnessed this process last summer at a similar venue in Berkshire country and was regretful that I hadn't tried it out then.  Here is a picture diary of the process.  

First you drop the colors into the water tank

More color

A more color.  I think I added 5-6 different colors.

I swirled it into itself and other colors

You use a skewer to move the color around

More swirling and then I made sure I like what I had done.

The silk has to be held taunt as it is placed onto of the ink bath.

Here is my scarf removed from the ink bath and completely printed.  It is shades of purple and blue.  

After a multiple day process of drying, resting, irons, and washing, it will be ready to wear, hang on the wall

or use as a table runner.  This was a really fun process, very similar to shaving cream batik.  I loved it

and can't wait to wear my new scarf when I am back to school!

Here's what I've been up to.....

Not so good prints

To begin, yesterday was a fabulous day, I posted myself in front of the big screen to view the AOE Winter on-line convention.  I can't think of a better way to spend my day than being connected with fellow art teachers from all around the world, getting inspired and well, uh, educated.  It's the next best thing to actually attending one of those face-to-face conventions like the one coming up in New Orleans in March.  One day I'll be able to do that, too.  Many weeks back I ordered a Gelli Plate.  I kept reading about them, viewing all these wonderful instructional videos and seeing some amazing prints so I just wanted to give one a try myself.  I ordered the 5 x 7 size and I am happy with my choice.  Upon it's arrival I immediately opened the package, read all the directions and sealed it back up leaving it to sit on the side table in my living room where it has been for weeks.  But today, inspired by all the wonderful of yesterday, I gathered up all of my tools and miscellaneous gadgets that might work for texture and headed to the kitchen table to finally try out that Gelli plate.  After a few refresher videos to refocus on the process I began to "play".  And, yes, it really does feel a lot like play.  First I attempted just inking the plate using printing ink.  Some of my ink has been around for awhile and either was too cold from being stored in the basement or was about to dry out because I really struggled with spreading it.  I used bubble wrap, a onion bag, and some stencils I found in a craft drawer to see how I might do with masking.  Quickly I discovered that I had jumped ahead of myself and I should be making my foundation prints using only color.  I think I learn best from my mistakes, it sticks with me longer and as we all really know "There are no mistakes in Art only opportunities for creativity"!  I eventually got the hang of the multiple layers of printing and masking to produce some of the effects I had seen in the videos.  Oh, and thanks to the Sargent paints in my AOE swag box, I was able to make some really effective prints using acrylic paint.  I did like the way the paint moved on the plate much better than the inks.  I don't truly know if it was because the paints were fresher or if paint is really an easier medium to use this way.  The yellow paint also stained my plate but it didn't add residue to subsequent prints so no bother.  I read that it would come off with mild soap and water but it wasn't that bad of a stain and I didn't attempt to clean it.  What was a surprise was that the plate picked up the ink from the newspaper I had laid out to protect my work surface.  It does not appear to come off but again did not transfer to the prints.  I had moved the plate off of the plastic surface I had it on to wipe up some ink and it was only on the paper a second...lesson learned.  Clean up was very easy.  I enjoyed attempting to pull as many ghost prints off of the plate as possible so there was not much ink or paint left on the plate to clean up.  I can't wait to gather up some more stencils and other items to use for mask and try it all again.  I do want to make sure I have a wider variety of colors available for the next round of printing.

Work in progress

Used for Ghost  Prints

Used for Negative Prints

Even the paper used to clean the brayer looks interesting

I like the weight of the watercolor paper for the prints much better than the lighter sketching paper.  Lastly, a few of my getting there prints. I had cut notches out of an old plaster credit card to use for the subraction printing, the curved lines, and the dots are from bubble wrap.  I cut hearts out of the stencil sheets just using small craft scissors.  So, there we have it.

Starting to get the hang of it.

Monoprints - City Lights

As a part of my November Month of Printmaking, 2nd grades created these really cool mono prints.  I loved their reactions when they discovered the image appear as if it were reflected in water.  A few students grabbed paper and continued to do their own additional compositions with more of a seasonal theme.  It's so much fun as well as rewarding when a lesson really goes over well.  This one will stay in my list of curriculum regulars.

Printing a winter scene

I found this project on Kid Artist along with several other wonderful winter projects.  I was winding down with printing projects late last month and had one class that was ahead of all the others.  I needed one more lesson to keep this group on track and not too far ahead of everyone else.  My November focus was printmaking and this definitely filled the bill.  The tree is printed using cardboard and the owls were fingerprints.  Week one, students colored in the full moon, printed the tree overlapping and added the fingerprints that would become the owls.  Week two, they added details to the owls using drawing pens and stamped snowflakes using commercial stampers from the dollar store.  Really cute, don't you think???

Printing and Poppy Flowers

November is printmaking month in the art room.  With the younger grades the projects are usually mono-prints with collographs and relief prints for the older grades.  I am a person that requires experiment and change and am bored teaching the same lesson over and over.  This year was time for change so I began perusing the internet and pinterest for new ideas and ways to teach printmaking.  I found a really cute monster project here that used a marker and coffee filter print.  I like the method but didn't want to do monsters.  With Veteran's Day coming up, I thought of poppy flowers.  In my research, I discovered that poppy flowers are only associated with Memorial Day not Veteran's Day but the project was born regardless.  Here are some visual steps to creating the finished printing and collage project.

Begin by ironing the filters to flatten, then have students add color with yellow and red to the filter.

Spray the filter with water which has been placed on a sheet of white paper.  Place a 2nd paper on top and rub to transfer the inks to the papers.  This is the printing process.  You can iron them to rush the drying process or leave them to dry on your dry rack for week two.  Next the students used some scrap greeting cards to create organic shapes to trace to create the petals of the poppy flowers.  These were traced on the filter and printed papers.

I had students to draw grass and stems on a dampened sheet of 9x12 paper to create a field for the flowers.  I chose to dampen the paper so the watercolors would run to mimic the color patterns of the prints.  Poppy flowers  have 4-6 petals; shapes were chosen to create each flower.  Once flowers were in place, a black water based marker was used to dot in the centers of the flowers, accentuate some of the grass and stems and outline the flower petals.

Color pencils in shades of green can be used to add in a few buds.  This was a very successful and fun-filled lesson!

More snowflake prints but this time for Valentine's Day

All of my fourth grade students created snowflake prints back before the holidays.  I wrote about the process here in December.  One class was still working on a previous lesson and missed out on the printing.  It is a really fun project and the students all seem to really enjoy it.  With that in mind, I began thinking about a snowflake cutting book on my bookshelf that featured valentines.  My book was written by Robert Kelly.  I can't locate it on Amazon but here is a similar book by Kelly.  I selected several patterns and ran copies for the students to chose from.  I like the style of this book because each pattern has folding instructions attached at the top of the page.  Week one they cut valentine snowflakes and week two we printed on red and pink paper using red and white tempera paints.  I wanted to share a few of the beautiful snowflakes they completed with you.