Winter and Summer Animal Prints Put Into Collages

This week in my K-2nd grade Animal Kingdom after school class at the University City Arts League I had the kids create summer and winter scenes with oil pastels and watercolor, then cut out their prints from last week of animals that change the color of their coats based on the season and place them in the scenes. I think the results are pretty wonderful.

4th Graders Turned Their White Line Prints Into Mixed Media Sculptures

This week was my last week teaching Summer Spree at the Community Arts Center. It was only a week-long session and I wanted the kids to do both some 2D and 3D art, so we took the white line prints they made earlier in the week, painted the back with watercolors (using salt and alcohol to add texture), cut them out, and attached bodies made of craft stems and beads. The kids also made magazine paper mache stands for their butterflies to perch on.

As always, this camp is a blast to teach. As I said to my co-workers at the end of the last day, I'm already looking forward to next year.

 

This last photo is of the butterflies made by myself and my assistant.

Linocuts+ by 4th graders, inspired by a visit to a frog pond

Last week I had my Summer Spree campers create linoleum prints inspired by our visits to the local frog pond. They drew in sketchbooks, then made drawings in pencil on linoleum blocks. I showed them how to use carving tools (none had made a linocut before.) A few minor cuts and bandaids later they learned how to proof their prints in black or blue ink on white paper and white ink on black paper. From there the kids were encouraged to create final products for our end of session exhibition however they wanted. They could hand color with markers, colored pencils, watercolor paints, or collage. As a result of being given so much freedom toward the end of this project, the variation in their final products is striking and really reflects each of their personal interests and personalities.

My favorite was Minori's. She's a bit of a dark, serious kid at times, and after hand-coloring her print she wanted to add a poem "about a frog and a window." So we did a Google search and she found the perfect poem to compliment her image and set the dark mood she wanted: Frog Outside My Window by Walterrean Salley.

Amelia spent a lot of time carving and removed most of the surface linoleum from her block, so I had her print in oil-based black ink and then we masked a border and she add colors with watercolor paint for the neatly finished image of a birdfeeder.

Lauren got rather creative; first she hand-colored and glued one of her prints to a blue piece of paper. Then she drew on and cut one of her other prints to turn it into a figure, and added it and more drawing to the overall work of art.

Both Selwa and Leah turned their prints into diptychs; Selwa had made a symmetrical image with the frog in the center and the pond below, so a second, ghost image of the print was placed underneath to make a reflection. Leah made an image of a tree and printed one black on white paper, and one white on black paper.

 

Ben also created two versions of his print, both hand-colored, and glued them to the same piece of paper. And Nate hand-colored his bug-eyed frog print and then added pieces of green polka dot fabric to the space around the image.

And finally, Zoia and Sophia both added bold color with opaque acrylic paint to their prints to totally transform the image, using the linocut image as a starting point. 

I love children's artwork. Looking forward to Session 6 of Summer Spree camp this year. I think I'm going to have the kids make a version of white line relief print with markers and Scratch Art Scratch Foam.

Stamping Patterns with Middle Schoolers

After reading about Anne Nydam's One Inch Stamp Project on her blog Black and White, last month I carved a small flying fish stamp and played around with stamp tiling.

The past two weeks I had a chance to teach Nydam's lesson with my 4th-6th grade students in 2D Mixed Media at the University City Arts League. They did 3" rubber stamps.

"Eagle Nest"

White line woodcut
Watercolors on 120 lb. watercolor paper
8" x 11" (paper) 5" x 7" (block) 

The imagery for this woodcut was inspired by my daughter playing in an Eagle nest installation at Drexel's Academy of Natural Science's Outside In, an section of the museum designed for children's play and discovery. I love watching kids play in the eagle next because the mismatched and out of proportion scale of structures, toys, and participants feels dreamlike. I go back and forth between seeing the children dressed in eagle costumes are noble predators themselves, or shifty impostors. A third possibility - perhaps they are in a state of transformation. 

Collaborative Linocut with Lysi: "The X Dress"

This is a 6" x 9" (full bleed) linocut with hand watercolor painting. It is a collaborative piece by me and my 7-year-old daughter Lysi. It started as a drawing (second image below) she did from observation of her little sister Bebe. Bebe was kneeling down at coffee table drawing, and Lysi and I were sitting on a couch behind her. I gave her a couple suggestions and pointed out some details when she became frustrated, but she drew it all herself. I loved the drawing so much that later I transferred it to a linoblock and turned it into a print so we could make colored versions. The first image here is the one I colored. Lysi colored the one with baloons and another girl in the background (the original drawing was done at a friend's birthday party) and the final version was colored by Bebe.

Christopher Wormell's "Fifteen Leopard Rosettes"

I've promoted Christopher Wormell's linocuts for children on this blog once before. But such gorgeously illustrated picture books deserve repeated mention.

Just this week I stumbled a rather well-loved copy of his counting book Teeth, Tails, & Tentacles in the library at my daughter's preschool. One of my favorite things about this book was the use of unexpected vocabulary. For example, for the number 15, Wormell features fifteen leopard rosettes. I've never before encountered the use of that term to describe the large, two-toned spots on a cat, but it's lovely and fitting. So often books for the very young avoid using big words, which is a shame, since how else are children to learn such words if they aren't exposed to them in a memorable context?

Wormell's bold linocuts are definitely memorable. I encourage readers to peruse the entire collection of his illustrated children's books on his website, here.

"Pre-ballet"

"Pre-ballet"
Woodcut reduction, 4 layers of color
Image 3.5" x 4", Paper 5.5" x 8"
Water based inks on 100 lb. smooth Bristol paper
Limited edition of 6
Available for purchase here.

Those who know me probably recognize my oldest daughter in this image. She has been taking Pre-ballet for 2 years already, and has another year to go before she'll be in "real" ballet class. But she dances all the time in her pink leotard, tutu, and little pink slippers.

I created this print as an end of school year gift for my daughter's dance teacher. She is one of those people who is always joyful and patient around young children. After the kids' end of year performance - which only lasted a few minutes - she beamed with pride and I swear I saw her eyes watering. Great teachers are priceless.

Below you can see the preliminary pencil drawing and what the wood block looked like by the time I was finished.

Linocuts by my Four-Year-Old

My daughter has been bugging me to let her use my brayers and ink. She also enjoys using watercolors on the dud black and white prints I give to her.

This morning I handed her a piece of Blick EZ cut linoleum and told her to draw some shapes for me to carve out. After carving, I had her roll out some black ink and showed her how to print using the wooden spoon. She did it herself (her inability to put much pressure on the spoon is why the black areas have so much texture - which I think worked out nicely.) Later, she hand water-colored one of them. I can't decide if I like the color or black and white version better.


While I was carving, she wanted to carve, too, so I handed her another piece of linoleum, some carving tools, and showed her how to not cut herself. She had some fun ripping the block up a bit, and then printed that by herself, too (the image on purple paper below.)




 She draws and paints all the time, and I suppose there will be a lot more printmaking now. At the rate she's going, she'll surpass me in skill by the time she's 18. That would be pretty awesome.