Showing posts with label sawtooth print shop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sawtooth print shop. Show all posts

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Field Trip! Sawtooth Print Shop

I'm excited to share with my students and y'all another installment in that series of videos that I'm calling Field Trip!  I got the idea to visit contemporary artists and film them in action to share with my students. The goal is for them to see living artists creating and know that creating art takes many forms from mural painting to folk art to...printmaking. Which brings me to these two good lookin' folks, Chris Cheney and Nieves Uhl of Sawtooth Print Shop.
They are seriously so much fun!
I met Chris and Nieves at a workshop hosted by The Frist Center for Visual Arts. We had so much fun that when I was dreaming up artists to visit, their studio immediately came to mind. Not surprisingly, they were totally open to the idea and were gracious enough to carve time (see what I did there? "Carve"...get it?!) out of their busy schedule to show me just how they create their prints. They were so thorough in their explanations that I believe kids will understand their process. 
Personally, I just loved exploring their space and snapping photos for their vintage typeface. I was told most are purchased from former printmakers who no longer have a means to print or a desire to do so. 

 I loved how clearly they explained the reasoning behind carving backwards. I know I would mess that up ALL.THE.TIME. I don't know how they do it.
Both artists did their internship at Hatch Show Print which must-see if you are ever visiting beautiful downtown Nashville. 
I felt like I learned so much from this field trip as well! Seeing the process of how their posters are creating was like taking a step back in time. I think that showing this Field Trip! video will be a great introduction to any printmaking unit. 
Since we're talking about printmaking, I thought I'd add some of my favorite printmaking projects and videos to this post. 
You don't need fancy printmaking supplies to create great prints with your students. In a pinch, you can use styrofoam sheets, markers, paper and a damp sponge. If you've never tried marker prints, they are a game changer! First grade created these lovely prints with that method. More details here

Last year, third grade tried their hand at printmaking with these beautiful cityscape prints

For that, we did use ink but markers could have been used as well. 
Gelli Plates make a great printmaking surface as well, which is what we used for this Andy Warhol-inspired lesson. I've created my own gelatin plates and had the kids use those as well. 
Earlier this year, my third graders created these marker prints and used them in a fall collage
Fourth grade created these radial prints for Dot Day and had a ton of fun. 
Seriously, y'all. This poster created by Sawtooth is a kid-fave in my room.  

Special thanks to Chris and Nieves for the fun visit. Y'all are the best! 
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Tuesday, August 25, 2015

DIY: Printmaking Made Easy

I mightah told y'all that when I was a kid, I was addicted to attending Vacation Bible Schools. I didn't care what the denomination, all I needed to know was: Will there be Barrel Drink and will there be Macaroni Art? 
The school I attended didn't have art class so my only experience in arts -n- craftin' came in the form of a lil Bible learning and a whole lotta popsicle stick art (you shoulda seen my popsicle stick Noah's Arc, y'all. Best o' Show.) As an adult (if that's what you wanna call me), this translates into me being addicted to taking art classes around town. Luckily for me, our local art museum The Frist always has the best of offerings...even if they forgot to serve Barrel Drank. 
The Frist doesn't have a permanent collection and I think that's pure genius because it means no stale art that's been hanging for years. It's an ever-changing canvas of art history, culture and contemporary art that keeps locals like me coming back. One exhibit they currently have is the work of Jaume Plensa (that's his surreal sculpture there) whose work is phe-nom-in-alll. 

The last class I took at The Frist was the awesome hat making workshop where I made my donut hat! And I'm excited that I'll be leading a workshop at The Frist on needle felting soon. But enough about that, let's talk about these two wild -n- crazy guyzzz: 
Meet Nieves Uhl and Chris Cheney, owners of the letterpress and design studio Sawtooth Print Shop! Both met at Hatch Print Show and opened their place about three years ago. Not only do they offer their design services and prints but they also offer classes (guess who is dying to sign up for that?! GUESS). Sadly, as you can tell by the photo above, they are both entirely too serious to be any ounce of fun. 

Bwaha, I kid! I loved 'em so! I mean, how could I not when what comes out of their studio are masterpieces like this: 
You better believe I whipped out my credit card and purchased this beauty. It now hangs proudly in the Masterpiece Gallery in the art room!
 So Chris and Nieves carve on linoleum blocks. Which is pretty hard to do for us newbies. So we worked on Softoleum which was like carving in butter. We began by copying our design onto our blocks. 
Graphite paper worked well for this but several attendants found that simply rubbing the back of our pencil design very firmly easily copied the design onto our surface. Who knew? Well, apparently several folks did. One of them NOT being me. 
I didn't take printmaking in college (a regret. One of the many.) so my only experience was a woodblock carving print-stint in high school. Which sucked. Wood carving is for beavers, y'all. But this stuff I loved because of the easy which you could carve into it. Not to mention that if you don't carve too deep can you flip it over and carve on the backside! So filling up my virtual shopping cart with these bad boys. 
I'm on this Tiki kick. So that was my inspo. I'm dying to print these Tiki blocks onto the bottom of a dress or a skirt kinda like I did here one million years ago. 
Tho, I gotta tell ya, I'm not as in love with this block. Hence the reason my virtual shopping cart is loaded down with s'more blocks. 
I did treat my paper before printing. Instead of using white paper, I rolled a lil gold and a lil blue onto several sheets before printing my blocks. 
I wanna host a Tiki Party just so's I can send these out as invites! But what does one DO at a Tiki Party? Aside from drink fancy barrel drinks with umbrellas? 
I attended this class with a coupla art teacherin' buddies who made the cutest of prints! Check out my friend Virginia's portrait of her dog and my buddy David's Mickey-inspired print as well as his sailor-themed print of his last name. I have smart artsy friends, y'all. 
But, seriously, what made the class so special was our awesome host Rosemary Brunton and our instructors Nieves and Chris! Can't wait til the next class, I'm already signed up (um. Actually, I think it's my class. So, never mind)!
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