Elementary School Art - Relief prints and Collagraphs

Grade five students printing blocks using a baby press with my assistance

 student carving eco-karve material block

 students construct collagraph plates and print them using the press

 example of collagraph print and plate by a grade five student

 Just wrapped up several visits into two elementary school classrooms in placements through our Community Arts and Heritage Education project.

One grade five class learned to carve and print a relief block in black ink then add colour in after using watercolour.

The other class, a grade four/five split constructed low relief collage plates using everyday common materials and recycled items destined for the trash bin.

Both grades explored the themes of ancient civilizations. The block prints are exclusively Eygptian influence where the collagraphs explored ancient roman, greek, eygptian and chinese cultures of old.

For the collagraph print project students used Akua Intaglio inks with blending medium which were painted, wiped and rolled onto the plates.

The final works on paper were presented to the public this past week in a display at our local community auditorium. Below are examples of student work and also photos taken of the display.

Relief printmaking workshop at our local art gallery Sunday Jan 22, 2012

On Sunday January 22nd I gave a workshop to 10 enthusiastic artists. As workshop duration was limited to 6 hours there was only time enough for covering the basics. I divided the session into two 3 hour components which were

a) sketching, transferal of design to block surface, rendering with permanent black marker and carving

b) printing using both hand burnishing and running block under the roller of a small printing press.

Participants used a new product Eco-Karve manufactured by Inovart Inc. to carve out their relief images which I acquired from Blick art materials online. They also got to try a few inks out including Graphic Chemical's new formula water-soluble glycol based relief inks, Caligo safe wash modifed oil inks and Speedball water based inks. All of the inks were easily cleaned up using a little liquid dish washing detergent first wiped on to the surface and then they were immersed into a tub of warm water which removed the dissovled ink.  

One word about the Eco-karve. It  is a soft pinkish brown colour material and is very easy to cut. It holds lines really well without too much crumbling. It is 1 cm (3/8 inch) thick, smooth on both sides and also is non-slip in nature. You can get pencil to transfer to it's surface easily just by rubbing your drawing in reverse over top with the back of a metal spoon, thus eliminating the need for transfer paper. However the material will stretch unfortunately under the slightest pressure of a press roller. This made it a bit frustrating to register a second block and therefore it was nearly impossible to get good registration using the press roller method of printing. I would have to say that the use of this material is limited really to using hand burnishing only. For accurate registration I would stick with traditional harder surface lino and wood surfaces.

To our surprise one of the gallery staff had tipped off the local newspaper about the workshop (since it co-incided with my current solo print based series exhibition at the gallery) and a photographer showed up unannounced during the session. The photo scans included in this post are taken from the Jan 23 edition of the Chronicle-Journal (our local printed daily paper) which show some of the activity that happened during the workshop.

Exhibition of prints opening Friday Jan 13, 2012

 Wilderness: Paterson Gallery in the Thunder Bay Art Gallery

 The Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Keewatin Drive, Thunder Bay, Ontario

  

 My series of wilderness prints opened for exhibition to the public last Friday at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.

34 studies are on display until Sunday March 4, 2012.

For the opening I gave a 40 minute in length artist talk complete with some digital slide accompaniment and a table display of tools, surfaces and books relevant to printmaking techniques from my personal collection.

This is my first solo show in my own community on this scale.

The gallery is also featuring two other exhibitions of original print based works and a display of prints created by first nations visual artists that have been selected from the gallery's permanent collection.

some of the serigraphs from my Wilderness series

 intaglio plate print with hand colouring titled "Canoe Trip"

patrons mingle and view my work on opening night

photo by A. Mackay

Artist talking to a partron

photo by A. MacKay

Giving an artist talk on printmaking and various techniques I use

photo by A. MacKay

Patrons reading my Artist Statement, Biography and the Curators Essay

photo by A. MacKay

Slide component of my talk

photo by A. MacKay

Describing the process of engraving on an acyrlic plate

photo by A. MacKay

Elementary school art - relief printmaking Atikokan ON

Continuing with my last blog entry which I had posted photos of two mosaic panels of print images thought I would post a few examples of some of the individual prints that were created by students from grades 3, 4 & 5 during my recent placement through the Ontario Arts Council Artist in Education program.
The school involved was North Star Community School in Atikokan Ontario right in the heart of NWO just above the famous Quetico Provincial Park (listed in Rough Guide as one of the Top Ten parks to visit on the planet).
The prints are printed from the surface of scratchfoam plates that were drawn into with ballpoint pen, dissected with scissors, had Graphic Chemical water soluble relief printing inks applied to separated pieces using brayers and were finally reassembled and printed. Students printed the assembled plates both on white paper and onto a pre-printed black square on white paper.
Themes that were explored are Flora/fauna and Nature.

Grade 4

grade four

Grade 5

grade 3

grade 5

grade four

grade five

grade 4

grade four

grade 3

grade 5

grade 3

grade 5

grade 5

grade 5

grade 3

grade 5

grade 4

grade 5

grade five

Elementary School Art - Styrofoam plate jigsaw relief printmaking project

Collective jigsaw relief print panel

Theme: Plants and Animals

Grades 3/4

North Star Community School

Atikokan, ON

 Collective jigsaw relief print panel

Theme: Nature in Canada

Grades 4/5

Pictured above are the results of a project that I undertook recently in the capacity as an arts educator. This project is funded by the Ontario Arts Council and is under the wing of the Artist in Education program that pairs professional working artists with teachers and their students in the classroom.

I just returned last week from an 11 day placement in a junior elementary school located in a community about 2.5 hours west of where I live.

Two classes were involved in the 50 hour arts education project which focused specifically on relief printmaking. Fifty students from grades 3, 4 and 5 were challenged to create a design based on either the theme of Nature in Canada or Plants & Animals. They took that design and transfered it to the surface of a styrofoam plate. They then added in textural elements to the foam using a pointed tool such as a ballpoint pen tip.The plate was cut apart and individual pieces had ink applied. Pieces were reassembled and a print was made by laying paper over top and by using both traditional hand burnishing. The students were also given the opportunity to use my small table top press to print a couple each of their prints. I also had them print two white line prints and one on top of a pre-printed black square on white paper (for black line definition). We used a new water soluble ink manufactured by Graphic Chemical. This is non-toxic, washes up easily with warm soapy water and has a long working time on the inking slab and roller. It is formulated from glycol.

Once the prints were dry I then took one good print from each student and created a large mosaic panel by assembling the square prints in a grid pattern.

The Editior from the weekly published Atikokan Newspaper The Progress stopped by on one of our printing days and took a few photos and we chatted. This two page story on the project was printed by the paper and I received a copy in the mail.

more prints from recent experimentations with vegetable oil relief printing ink

I have been putting some of the samples of the Aqualine printmaking inks I received from Rudolph Faust Co. of New Jersey a while back to the test. These I am told by the manufacturer are derived from a vegetable oil base. They have been tested at Duke University and meet all the standards to be labelled non-toxic.In the website they are being called water based but make no mistake they are indeed waterproof once they dry on the paper surface.
The ink will remain open on the inking plate and block surface for quite a while. What I also like about them is the low odor and the easy clean up with a little liquid dish soap and warm water.  I found that they do take time to dry much like a plate oil base ink and factors such as humidity, absorbancy of paper and thickness of ink will determine that drying time.
I also learned that some of the pigments used in a few of the colours have a bit of a transparent quality and therefore had to add a little white to increase opaque factor.

I think these will work very well for some of my classroom based activities for the above stated reasons.
Students I work with have pretty much used Speedball water based to date for relief printing applications but there have been some frustrations that include uneven thickness of ink when it is applied to relief surfaces, ink not coating the brayers in some spots.The most irritating thing would be the ink drying too quickly before it is printed from the block surface.

The two example prints both used the Faust Aqualine Ink.

The first is a jigsaw block study derived from a Blick flexible printing plate. This material allowed me not only to cut it apart but also to carve its surface with linocut blades. It has a peel and stick backing for mounting onto a board, card or in this case a thick paper base sheet.
The print is fairly small in size and thus proved a challenge for dissecting (which I ended up using a sharp point craft knive to achieve).
This was printed on Somerset Velvet black 250 gm rag paper with the aid of my press.

image copyright 2011 ã

The landscape below was created from three separate blocks. The blue and pink were printed first off of an uncut rectangle of Easy Cut material. I blended the two colors together by placing pink in the middle and blue on either side then rolling the brayer on the inking plate until a nice blend occured. This was transferred to the block surface and printed.

The second block (cloud formations) was cut from a piece of  flexible printing plate that was pre-mounted onto a heavier piece of bookbinding board. The ink I used was a 50% white and 50% transparent base mix so that some of the blue background came through as a lighter blue.

The last block was printed in black and defined the trees, islands and ripples in the water. The block was cut from a rectangle of golden cut linoleum.

The image was printed onto a piece of thin bleached mulberry paper with the aid of my small printing press.

image copyright 2011ã

Magazine profile

I recently did an interview for Superior Outdoors Magazine, a publication based here in Thunder Bay and is found in fine bookstores and magazine stands in lakeside communities and larger urban centers both sides of the border.
The summer 2011 edition was recently published and is available on newstands and to subscribers. Unfortunately the current issue will probably not be available fully online for viewing until the next fall/winter issue is published but you can view back issues by clicking on the link. Below you can view the single page profile of yours truly with the block print they chose to accompany the article.
This magazine would have an appeal to readers who have an appreciation of the outdoors and nature. The articles and photographic images are top rate.
I am very thrilled to have been asked to be a featured artist in the arts and literature section. The theme found throughout a lot of my imagery is relevant especially with the focus on Lake Superior and the geography of this region of the province.

Superior Outdoors

Cover of Summer issue 2011

Also on a related note I have an exhibition of 27 selected pieces from my Wilderness series here in Thunder Bay at Calico Coffeehouse. This establishment is located in the lower level at 316 Bay. St.  The display runs until August 6. Here is a link with more details as featured in the locally published Webzine The WallEye
http://www.thewalleye.ca/2011/06/14/studies-from-holdens-wilderness/

Continuation of miniature polymer plate etchings with hand colouring






This study is a continuation in a series of small polymer plate miniatures. The last one is this titled The Swan
I had some small leftover pieces of solar plate from a large 16 x 20 inch piece I had cut up earlier this year so decided to use these up and create miniature works in a square format.
This is based on a photo I had taken from the deck of the Chicheemaun ferry that crosses over Lake Huron from South Bay Mouth on Manitoulin Island to Tobermory at the end of the Bruce Peninsula. It is a study of Cove Island lighthouse that is found about 20 min. offshore from the village of Tobermory.
It was printed with oil based etching ink into Magnani revere rag paper then watercolour was added for the colour.
The plate size is 5 x 5 cm (2 x 2 inches) and the paper is 15 x 15 cm (6 x 6 inches). It will be an open varied edition.

I am hoping to get some more photo studies of lighthouses of the Great lakes in the near future. Have some friends who are boaters who have agreed to help out.