This is a fun one-day printmaking project, although we will spend a second session retouching our smudgey prints with a little oil pastel. Printmaking is an indirect method of creating an image, often in multiples, and we learned that adding the prefix "mono" meant that our prints would be single and unique. It has a certain quality that can't be achieved through direct drawing/painting, and I just adore it. We used laminating film ends for our printing plates, after collecting plenty of ends by keeping a collection box by the laminator! I traced rectangles on each one with a sharpie to maintain the border, and we brushed the tempera inside. We used Q-tips, forks, Popsicle sticks and paint scrapers by Roylco to create our textures, lines and shapes. We each printed two white and two red, rotating to different tables. Clean up involved a spray bottle of water and a good paper towel wipe down, so the plastic plates would be ready for the next day's use.
Count on at least one smudgey print, but everyone got at least one great one. Some even figured out how to do the backwards writing! Such fun.
Ohhhh!!! These are awesome! I have a ton of laminating film bits in my room! My second grades are done with their snowflake watercolors and I was going to start some heart paintings with them but I love this more! Kids love printmaking, even though they understand the process it's like magic to them ! Thanks for sharing these! :)
ReplyDeleteThey will love it Mrs. C! Just give them plenty of paper and tell them not to worry about the bad prints - they can be saved after they are dry with pastel, glitter, whatever!
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