Botanical and Wildlife Linocuts (First Proofs) by 6th Graders at Kearny

Today my 6th grade SNAP students at Kearny School pulled black and white proofs from their carved linocuts. As readers can see here, the results were impressive! As I mentioned in my last post about Lynette Weir's Tawny Frogmouth Glare linocut, this project is meant to compliment a science unit in Ecology. I'm working with two more schools and the students at all three will be further developing some of these works by added color and collage, so more posts to come!

Kearny is the same school where I had last year's 6th graders create reduction linocuts inspired by fossils. I'm so impressed with the work produced by these kids, most of whom have never made a relief print before.



I taught a similar SNAP project a few years ago in the after school program (posts here and here) to compliment a unit on insects, but now that I'm visiting several whole classes during the school days I have many more students engaged and present for the entire duration of the program. I love seeing their enthusiastic reactions when they pull that first black and white proof off the block. They are always so surprised and pleased at the bold transformation of their drawings into prints.

For my part I am particularly excited about this project because I've been developing my own linocuts of owls. I hope to continue that series later this year, possibly for a calendar.