Students' Relief Prints from Workshop at Second State Press

I capped off my summer teaching today with Easy, Fun Relief Printmaking, a Second Saturday family workshop at Second State Press and sponsored by PECO. This is a free, 2-hour workshop offered to community for people of all ages. It's an ongoing event, so if you live in or near Philadelphia and are interested in free art workshops, check it out!

There were about 15 attendees, with kids outnumbering parents almost 3 to 1. The youngest was 6 years old, and there was also a teenager present. I decided to work with sheets of craft foam sheets, cut apart, embossed with a pencil, and glued to pieces of chipboard. This is a very versatile and inexpensive material, so it's great with a mixed-aged group. We printed with water-based block printing ink and brayers, although some of the students gone creative with paper collage and applying some of the ink to the plates with brushes. Here are some of my favorite prints the students produced.