Imagined Bugs Print/Collages by 5th and 6th Graders at CAC

I am having a fantastic summer teaching kids at the Summer Spree art camp at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford. This is a set of relief prints made with foam boards made by 5th and 6th graders. I had the kids draw bugs from their imagination into the foam and we printed 4 layers of color, adding pieces of foam or scratching in more marks and darkening the color of ink with each new layer.

We were originally planning a 5th layer in black, but the effects up until that point were so fantastic and we feared accidentally covering what was already there. So we switched up plans and decided to emphasize the colors and textures by cutting out and swapping the bugs and backgrounds printed in different color schemes.

What I love best about teaching at CAC is the ability to experiment with new project ideas and change plans in the middle based on what happens with the kids in the studio. These are probably the best prints by students I've worked with since the reduction prints I did with 6th graders at Kearny 2 and a half years ago.

Children's artwork can be amazing!

Kids' Relief Print Fish with Chine Colle

Last week I subbed a class at the University City Arts League and worked with a group of adorable mostly Kindergarten and 1st grade students. I had the kids rip up tissue paper and glue it to a paper as a "water" background. Then they each took a fish shape cut out of Scratch Art Scratchfoam, drew into it, and printed their fish onto the collages. It got sort of chaoic in class and at one point they started printing on each  others' collages, with wonderful results.

Monster Figure Reductions by 4th Graders

These are 2 layer reductions using Scratch Art Scratch foam made by 4th graders at the Community Partnership School. They printed the silhouette of a "monster" figure in black, then added details and printed again in white. I love these on the different colored paper. 

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.

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.