Thursday, September 22, 2016

In the Art Room: Radial Relief by Fourth Grade


I love a project that leads right into another. I also love a project where there is zero waste. 'Tis the reason I'm totes lovin' this Radial Relief by the Fantastic Fourth Grade!
If these look familiar to you, that's because these were our printing plates we created a couple of weeks ago! You can read all about that lesson and see video demos here
For that project, I ordered cardboard pizza rounds (we used 14" but in the future, I would def use something smaller) and self-adhesive foam stickers. Michael's seemed to have the best deal in town on those. I love that Michael's and JoAnn's offer teacher discounts and take competitor's coupons as well as their own...unlike some craft megastores (not naming names...but their initials are H.L., ahem). 
This really proved to be an effective lesson in teaching all about radial balance!
 And resulted in a ton of colorful prints.
For the second phase of this project, we used spray adhesive, extra wide rolls of foil from the Dollar Tree and Sharpie markers. Just before the kids came, I took their printing plates outside, sprayed them with adhesive and slapped a piece of foil on top. 
From there, they trimmed the excess foil off, folded it around the backside and started adding color to their designs. We reviewed our study of radial balance, the elements of art and chatted about the principals of design. 
I love that we were able to create something beautiful from their printing plates. And they really enjoyed this process.
Of course, we did have a coupla dudes enter Emoji-land. Who can blame them? Emojis are rad. 
 By the way, the patterned papers you see in the background are what all of my early finishers have been creating. They will be used in our upcoming What Lifts You mural that I'm super stoked about.
But I really love the backdrop they create for these pieces so I just might have to make them apart of the hallway display if we have any extra!
Have y'all used this technique with your student's printing plates? I'd love to know if you have and what spin you put on this project idea. 

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7 comments:

  1. I get the students to carefully smooth over the foil onto the printing plate once they have completed their final print.....when the plate is still wet.

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  2. I get the students to carefully smooth over the foil onto the printing plate once they have completed their final print.....when the plate is still wet.

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  3. Hey Cassie, I am planning to do both phases of this awesome double project, but I ordered non adhesive shapes from Amazon. Do u think that's a huge deal, will glue be both a huge pain and not stick enough for printing like the adhesive backing?

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    1. I don't think it's a big deal at all...we did have some that were nonadhesive and here is what we noticed: when we started printing, those pieces came off fairly easily. So my advice would be to make sure the kids use a good amount of glue to attach...or, perhaps better yet, get some of that Aleene's Tacky Glue which will def stick well. Have fun!!

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  4. You know, that is an excellent way to finish off any collagraph plate after printing. Thanks so much for the great tip - wish I had known about this one years ago!

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    1. Awesome!! I think it would work really well with collagraph printing plates!

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