Printmaking promotion - free activities for the public

A local art center I have been involved with since their formation recently approached me to see if I would be willing to give printmaking instruction in various techniques in several short duration demo workshops.


These are being offered free of charge for the public to drop in and try their hand at...sort of a sampler session that they can come in, spend an hour or more if they desire and create a small art work they can take home.

The center acquired a used etching press earlier this summer and want to offer printmaking workshops and possible rental of press time to those who might like to learn some of the various techniques or have previous experience.
By offering sampler sessions the idea is that if some are interested in taking it further we can offer long duration more intensive workshops (for a fee so we can cover artist fees, cost of materials).

We kicked off the new year yesterday with the first of the free workshops aimed at all ages. It was an introduction to very basic relief printing that I officiated. Participants were given a small piece of scratch foam printing plate and a pen. They were encouraged to draw an image into the surface. Then colour was applied to the surface of the plate with washable marker inks.
Dampened Japanese kozo paper was set over top and by either pressing with finger tips or rolling a soft rubber brayer across the top the image on plate was transferred to the paper. Where indentation from the ballpoint pen had been made a white line appeared on the print version on paper.

This activity had a lot of young artists in attendance but we also had a couple of adults try it out. Here are some examples of what a few participants created.

Collagraph part II - using low relief dense foam

Shoreline

2007
Collagraph

In my previous post I showed a couple of prints of mine that combined various low relief materials to produce a print on paper. One of the materials that was used was low relief pieces of scratch foam printing plate. 

This material has the ability to embed other shapes into it's surface. It can be used to great effect for adding interesting details to a collagraph print.

I pressed medium grit sandpaper into the foam surface to give this a grainy texture. I followed this by stabbing the foam with a pen tip to give me slightly larger depressions. For some crack lines I drew across with the point of a bamboo skewer.
The objective here was to create a pocky hard rock surface which is very common to the region where I live. 
The mission with this collagraph was to convey a sense of the landscape and elements of Northern Ontario...lots of water with an abundance of Cambrian Shield rock interspersed with boreal forests.

I cut and glued down the foam pieces onto a thick paperboard substrate. Then using an xacto blade I cut away and shaped the material. Using a ballpoint pen tip I was able to press into the foam and create pockets for darker areas to be made when the ink would be applied.

I was able to coat the foam and rest of the materials on the plate using shellac. Once it was dry then thinned etching ink was applied to the plate and it was wiped back and printed.

This is a magnified detail from a section of a test print from another study (5 colour relief print) showing how the texture came about from the styrofoam.

Visits to schools 2014/2015 (Pt 2 of 2) - grades 5 and 6 projects

Grades five and six students explored relief printmaking with their projects.

Grade 5 exploration for this project was structures. It served as the basis for creating one large colour image onto a contrast colour of  paper.
The first part of the project had them formulate a sketch on paper and then by tracing it onto a thin vellum paper they drew it again into a rectangular thin dense foam plate using ball point pen. (Scratch-foam made by scratch art USA).
A related element was created and by using stamping they repeated the same block image as 12 small prints side by side on a half sheet of colour subi printmaking paper.
Using a template that I had laid out and cut, I used light gray pencil crayon to mark in where the large and border imagery was to be pasted down onto the same size of a rectangular base sheet of Pegasus black cover paper.

Grade 6 undertook a project that is simply known as You Cube. It pairs repeated two colour contrast self portraits realized as relief block onto six sided corrugated cardboard cubes. 

There were 4 stages involved in this project that included:

• taking a digital photo (selfie) and then transferring this to the surface of a soft carvable block
• carving away the surface to create a relief 
• printing of six images using contrast inks and paper colours
• constructing the cube from waste cardboard then trimming and adhering the print to each side

grade 6 student carving away non black line areas of his block

Elementary School Art - Styrofoam jigsaw prints - Grade Four

jigsaw relief prints hanging to dry in the classroom

I just completed a styrofoam relief plate printmaking project with 23 grade four students. The theme explored was Medieval times.
Students were challenged throughout the project and had to move through several stages.
These included: 

• research of subject matter and sketches
• transfer of sketch to a soft polystyrene plate using tracing paper using ball point pen
• incorporation of textural elements
• disassembly of the plate into separate sections
• application of inks
• reassembly of individual pieces
• transferring ink to the paper using hand burnishing techniques
• printing more than one copy from the same plate surface

clever use of ink application by small tip brush for small intricate areas 

after the plate is cut apart the students to had to reassemble it. Individual pieces were removed one a time and water based block printing ink was rolled onto each piece using a soft rubber brayer.

printing set up. Table for ink application with cookie sheets, ink, non-slip pieces of material to set pieces onto to apply the ink and metal handle soft rubber brayers

 assembling plate with inked pieces 

This project used the following materials:

• scratch foam plates
• ball point pens
• xacto craft knives and scissors
• black kozo paper
• Graphic Chemical water based relief printing inks
• soft synthetic rubber brayers
• rubbing sticks, spoons
• tracing paper, layout paper                         

assembly of inked pieces

plate inked and reassembled for printing

placing black paper over the plate and using a brayer to facilitate ink transfer

 dragon

 mythical unicorn

castle

harlequin suited court jester

 shield

 castle

 flag with crest

another dragon

prints pinned onto a strip of cork just above the chalkboard

Elementary School art - Printmaking exhibition

display of two colour foam plate prints

Apologies to my followers, I have been visibly absent from my blog for several months.  During this time period I have undertaken several new projects with another four grades during my year long artist residency. I also took on an additional short term side project at another school during the month of April.
Will be posting several entries over the next few days that will feature both completed and in progress photos and comments relating to my art educator activities since February.

But first I forgot to post the final printmaking project I did with grades one and twos back in January. This was styrofoam plate prints. I find this medium very adaptable to young artist. First this method doesn't pose any threats from injuries using sharp cutting tools, Ball point pens or pencil tips work fine. Students can also press shapes into the foam. One method I have employed to achieve this for example is to take string, lay it over the plate, put a hard cover book over top and have the young student stand on the book. Their body weight forces the string into the foam surface and leaves a embossed shape in it.

                         a grade one student drawing into a soft dense foam plate using ball point pen

drawing directly into the foam using a pen

detail of foam based drawing. The pen collapses the foam and the lower areas do not hold ink when it is rolled across the surface. The print produced reproduces the drawing as white line in reverse on the paper.

Water based relief printing ink (tempera paint will also work if you are on a shoe string budget) is applied to the plate surfacw with a soft rubber brayer (or soft foam brayer for tempera). Paper is set over top and using hand burnishing using either the palm of their hand or a tool like a rubbing stick or back of a wooden spoon pressure is applied thereby transferring the ink from the plate surface to the paper.

the inking area

In the photo above students and their teacher are engaged in application of water based relief printing ink to the surface of the foam plates. For this exercise one colour prints were made. I used metal cookie sheets for containing and rolling out inks onto the brayers.

Print made using blue ink. Notice how where the drawing remains as negative space defined by the white of the paper.