Printmaking with 3rd, 4th and 5th grades

Before winter break, the art room is always bustling with pretty intense media. While the older students in grades 3-5 are exploring printmaking techniques, the lower grades are working with clay. As you can imagine, this is a lot for the teacher to keep under control, but somehow we manage. I was pleased with all of our work this time around. I hope maybe you'll see something you like too.

3rd graders work in the collograph technique. We have been working with this lesson for several years, but this time I revamped it after seeing something that I admired on Pinterest. Each student made two painted papers, one in warm colors and the other in cool colors for the printing papers. I love the multi-media look of these. Students also made anywhere between 3-5 prints on colored construction paper in addition to these.

4th graders worked on reflective cityscape prints. The background papers were painted before-hand and students made two of these. Additional prints on construction paper are a lot of fun after the painted papers are printed on. After making a printing plate using Styrofoam, the first print is made along the fold of the paper using the traditional printmaking technique. To create the reflection, students made a monoprint by folding the paper back in half to hide the first print and rubbed to transfer the city to the other half. I like this technique because the reflection has a very light appearance in contrast to the initial print of the cityscape. It works great!

 

5th graders made reductive leaf prints using the collograph method. They glued leaf shapes cut from Styrofoam onto a piece of board and printed with white ink. During the second class period, they drew lines using a dull pencil onto the leafs and printed with black ink. A lot to consider with this one! I am thinking about using this same technique next year except with seascapes as the subject matter.