Printmaking for kids

Dear Reader,

I hope you had a lovely weekend!  We did because the weather was so very nice-spring is here and in honor of that here is a spring art project for you!

In kindergarten I would focus on one artist a month to share with my students.  We would learn about that artist and then we would use their technique to create.  One of the months was Hokusai and his printing method.  This is the art project we would do as a class.  This weekend with the weather being so lovely I was inspired to create and I had these supplies on hand:

paper 

golf tee or dull pencil

meat trays {recycle-just rinse with warm soapy water}

any type of paint {I used tempera at school, I had acrylic this weekend}

brayer {craft store for 4 bucks with a coupon}

something to protect your surface

{first}  use golf tee to carve a design into styrofoam of choice, doubling trays works best.     

I used Styrofoam plates left over from take out and trays from the groceries.  Bailey tip...make sure your words are carved in backwards so they appear correctly when printed, also the deeper and wider the carving the better the print.  I would always make my kindergarteners re-trace their design several times to make sure it printed well.

{second}  cover work surface and put a pile of paint down on flat surface, use the brayer and run through paint a few times.  Coat your carving by rolling brayer over surface.  As much as possible keep paint out of grooves.

{third}  smoosh carving against paper and press, let sit a few seconds, and peel paper back.

{fourth} Let dry and enjoy your lovely print.

The fun part about this project is kid art looks even better than anything a grown up could make and it can be used at anytime of the year, seasons, holidays, or just for fun-very versatile. I found that acrylic paint is a little less forgiving than tempera but much more bold.  You can try different paint, paper, carving tools and get a different effect each time.  I was thinking I might try it with white paint on old magazines, hmmmm....

If you want to accompany your art session with a little education check out this {link} and this {one}.

Have an artful day and a happy Monday,

AshLee