Printmaking: 3 grades, 3 ways

Second nine weeks involves printmaking projects for my 3-5 graders - if you follow me on Instagram (@smartestartists), you know we have been printing up a storm for a while now and we are ready to show off some great results. Printmaking is a favorite medium for me - it has a certain quality that you can't achieve with other methods, and you get multiple prints of your design. Here's a quick breakdown:
5th grade: reductive prints using Lichtenstein's pop art shoes as inspiration, also inspired by the students of Mr. Bob, a colleague from years back who has recently been teaching in several other countries. http://schutzart.blogspot.com/2014/09/linocut-shoe-prints-middle-school-art.html
4th grade: cityscape print collages inspired by the drawings of James Gulliver Hancock's series "All the Buildings in New York."
3rd grade: collagraph prints, made from shapes and textures, representing the beauty of evergreens in winter.
The pictures tell the story...

Third graders begin printing their plates made with a variety of textured shapes like foam and cardboard. We use the messy middles/clean corners approach - clean papers stay at the corners while messy inks and plates stay in the middle of the table.

After printing, the plates get a sprinkling of iridescent glitter and they become works of art too. The kids wrote their titles as they brought the plates over so I could squeeze in a quick Artsonia installation.

Fourth graders began their project after getting some inspiration - they traced their own building designs onto styrofoam printing plates.

Black and white inks pop with brightly colored papers.

Students traded prints to create some variety in their cityscape collages, and texturized the backgrounds with crayon rubbings.

5th graders were involved with the most advanced technique, reduction printing, which is a multi-layered print. We began the first layer with a simple contour line drawing.

To reduce the plate, we added background patterns, shoe details, and a few areas were rubbed out completely with the pencil, which allows the first ink color to remain during the second layer of printing in a new color.

Behind the scenes:

Keeping the inking trays washed after each group was a priority

Our table covers became beautiful compositions too

The drying rack was the place to be, but be careful not to bump into each other!

Over 300 prints a day! Quite an accomplishment.