Love printmaking? Try these lessons!

I've rediscovered printmaking over the last month or so. I love printmaking because it is easy and can be done on the cheap. Well, sort of. The process is always so fun for the students and the results are magical--I love to watch them "ooh" and "aah" over their prints!

Well, here's a round-up of some past printmaking lessons from my site that may have you rocking and rolling with your students!

Matching Mittens with Found Object "Snow" Prints

USING FOAM TRAYS:
Reduction Prints (Using Styrofoam trays and found objects)
Andy Warhol Self Portraits (Using Styrofoam trays and a pencil to "carve" an image)
Reduction Print Selfie (Using Styrofoam tray and gradually removing portions of it between inkings)

USING CRAFT FOAM:
Haunted Houses (Using sticky-backed foam shapes)
Fall Banner (Using foam shapes to make stamps--can be changed for any theme or season)

FOUND OBJECTS AS STAMPS:
Create Your Own Stamps (Using found objects and wine corks to make your own stamps)
Matching Mittens and Snowflakes (Cut paper mittens with found object "snow")
Focal Point Fruit Prints (Using an apple or pear to print--exploring focal point too).
Leaf Prints (This is mine, it's from Deep Space Sparkle, but it is my go-to early finisher activity in the fall).
Modern Day Adinkra Cloth (Using stamped symbols on sections of card stock that are joined together into one "cloth")
Spring Forsythia Still Life (Using pieces of sponge to make a lovely arrangement of forsythia blossoms)
Not-So-Scary Dancing Skeletons (Uses doggy bone treats for unique stamps)

USING YOUR HANDS:
Andy Warhol Hand Prints (Seriously one of my most popular posts, but not mine--from Artolazzi--so easy!).

And one of my all-time popular posts--
Quick Andy Warhol Hand Prints

Last Minute Fall Projects For Older Children

I've been traveling all over these last couple of weeks enjoying some time with kids of all ages! I have been carrying around a couple of projects for my older students to do once their class projects have been completed. Two of these projects are self-directed and able to be set-up, executed, and cleaned-up by the children themselves. Love that!

Both projects are VERY much worth trying. Take a few minutes and try them out yourself!

Leaf prints: a great project I saw online and tried with my older kids this week was one I saw on the blog Deep Space Sparkle. Paint leaves white and print on black paper. Use a sponge to print colors such as red, green, brown, yellow and orange in the negative space around the leaves. This is an easy, but striking, piece. For more info, check out her post here.

Here are some of my students working on the Leaf Print project
from Deep Space Sparkle--they all loved how they came out. Me too!

Symmetrical Leaves: I had a big bag of leaves I carried around with me these last two weeks. I used them for the preschoolers to observe and match, the Kinders made leaf rubbings from them, the Elementary students used them in the leaf printing project above, and my private art students drew them. We cut the leaves down the middle using scissors, glued the half leaves to paper and drew the missing half back in with pencil. This is harder than it looks! It was a great project to do during that transition time between projects or while another project dried.

The drawing on the right were done by my 9-year-old student.

Enjoy these easy projects that celebrate Autumn!