After School Printmaking Workshop

Yesterday I had fun experimenting with printmaking techniques with some 9- to 12-year-olds. It always amazes me how much fun students have with printmaking. I love it too!

We only had an hour and a half, so we began by doing a reductive print by slowly destroying a foam plate using tools that are easy to find around the house and studio: plastic knives, popsicle sticks, skewers, pen caps, etc. Students were asked to make two types of marks on their plate, print it, return and make more marks on their same plate, print it AGAIN on top of the first print, and then repeat one more time. We could have spent the entire class doing this one project, since some students needed time to "see" how things would turn out. Overall, they were pretty impressed by the beautiful layers that were created in their pieces.

When they were done that, I showed them how to use a plexiglass plate and add shapes and letters using sticky-back foam to make a relief plate. The students really went crazy with this idea and some created three plates in a short period of time. Most created their names or initials but some created trees, hearts, dragons and more.

Supplies we used for the workshop:

• Foam veggie trays (don't use meat trays)
• Found tools (mentioned above and hole punches, decorative scissors, etc--pretty much anything that will marks foam in a neat way)
• Speedball printmaking inks (water soluble in red, blue, yellow, white, gold)
• Speedball soft rubber brayer (roller)
• Sticky-backed craft foam
• Plexiglass scraps (do not use shatter-resistant)

Have a great day!