In the Art Room: Troubleshooting Printmaking with the Littles

Hey, y'all! It's Printmaking Season in my art room currently and it's been a big fat hairy success. Mostly because, let's face it, printmaking is super mysterious, magical and mega-awesome. The kids are always surprised and thrilled by their result and pulled prints always elicit the biggest oooohhh's and ahhhhh's. 

BUT. There is the Dark Side of printing as well. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Poorly inked plates. Smeary prints. An inked and printed on body part (um, that was today, in fact. See below). However, I think I've got some tipz -n- trickz for y'all that might make life in Printmaking Town a lil easier. So click the sideways triangle below and I'll walk y'all thru some steps!

By the way, since my room tour video, I've seen a nice jump in my youtube channel subscribers. Thanks, y'all! My goal is to share more videos like the one above and the instructional videos I create for the kids. If you are interested, please feel free to subscribe, I'd love to have ya! 

 So, those marker prints...where have they been all my life?! They are super fun, easy to do and a great way to introduce kids to the magic of printmaking. I got the idea from one of my fave art ed bloggers, Don Masse (thanks, bruh!). You can find his awesomeness here. 

During the next two thirty minute art classes, the first graders printed with ink. Each student made a minimum of 5 prints which will be used in an upcoming project. By the end of the printing process, they were experts at covering their plates completely and pulling clean-ish prints. I mean, their fingerprints all over the background are prints as well, right?! Just say yes, there's no point in arguing with me. 

Give that paper a back rub, kid. 

Pulling only part of the way up and checking the print was encouraged. This way the kids could lay the paper back down and rub some more if need be. 

I have found that printing on copy paper works the best. I also have the kids use Speedball washable ink. Names are written on the back of the paper before printing is started. 

The kids were allowed to go to another table to use more ink. However, this will result in blended colors...which is cool if you use analogous colors. We had red and yellow out which created these lovely blended prints. 

 Love how it pops on this blue paper!

The kids really enjoyed these prints!

 Printing limbs was not encouraged...but super funny when it happens. This sweet girl leaned onto her plate accidentally and did a lil body printing. It's a new trend. She's totes cutting edge. 

Y'all saw these last week. These were created by my third grade after watching my lil demo video...

This week they'll watch this video. I hope it is as successful at explaining the process as the first one!

I'd love to hear your printing tips and tricks, y'all! Please feel free to share 'em in the comments. Until next time...

Read more »

In the Art Room: Printed Paris

Goin' out with a bang! We are slowly wrapping up our unit on Paris, France and what better way to say goodbye than with fireworks.

As my third grade students were finishing up these printed and chalked Parisian pictures, I was so impressed, I thought I'd share them with you. They were mighty proud of them too which lead to the following back and forth:

Kids: Can we PLEASE take these home today?

Evil Art Teacher: No! I must keep all of these masterpieces for the end-of-the-school-year art show!

OTL Kid [OTL = Out To Lunch]: When's the end-of-the-school-year art show?

EAT: The end-of-the-school-year art show is next week. 

OTL Kid: Yay! What time?

The Rest of Us: face palm.

Once we got OTL straightened out, I convinced the kids that this kind of art activity is one they could easily do at home. All that is needed is the following:

• cardboard cut into 1" X 2" rectangles. Be sure to cut it so that the wiggly corrugated cardboard line is visible on the 1" side. This will keep the cardboard sturdy enough for printing.
• tempra paint
• paper

I know, I know, paint on the floor? Really? I never claimed to be the Smartest Artist Teacher.

Group of finished third grade prints.

Want to make some printed Eiffel Towers of your own? Well, it's super easy. I thought I'd share with you the steps I had on display for the kids to follow.

1. We began by folding our paper in half both vertically and horizontally. After unfolding the paper completely, we brought the bottom of the paper up to the middle line and created another fold.
2. From there, we printed a vertical line from the top of the paper to the first horizontal crease. We added two diagonal lines and an intersecting horizontal line at the top.

3. We chatted about parallel lines and created two parallel lines from the ends of the diagonal lines. These were both the same length of the initial vertical line.

4. We crossed the initial vertical lines with intersecting horizontal lines. These were filled with diagonal lines that created X's.

5. All along we are learning factoids about the Eiffel Tower and it's creator Gustave Eiffel. We used the Eiffel Tower bulletin board and my windows as a helpful reminder. The second level of the tower was created with a printed rectangle shape.

6.  A triangle shape was created underneath that as were the long diagonal lines of the side of the towers legs.

7. From there, we created the arch and filled the legs of the tower with horizontal, vertical and intersecting diagonal lines.

And while I loved the end results of the prints, I wanted the kids to experience working in another medium and add their own personal flair to the project. Hence the chalking of their prints. I created the display of directions shown above to allow the kids to work independently on this portion of the project.

We also chatted about some of the famous structures in Paris that could be included in our chalked landscape like Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame.

The key is not to let your paper move as you smudge the chalk upwards. If this happens, you might lose image in your design.

The kids had great fun with this project. I've already received a couple "I did this at home!" versions of both the prints and the chalk. Nothing makes this Evil Art Teacher happier. You'll have to let me know if you decide to give this a go. Just don't let me get my hands on your masterpiece...it's likely you won't get it back. That is until the end-of-the-year...which I could only dream was next week (just kidding...we have entirely too much fun in store!).

Read more »