Block Printing

First Friday Art Club stamped things down and got a little messy in the process in September.  We entered the world of Printmaking and created our own blocks to print.

Block Printing supplies

For simplicity, I equated Block Printing with rubber stamping.  There is a block with an image that will get ink, then stamp on a surface to print.  The idea is straightforward, but there are nuances along the way.

Printing means the image is reversed.

This class immediately followed our week long Theatre Camp and my brain was having trouble shifting into Art Gear.  Printing from a block or stamp means the image gets flipped.  What you design on the left of your block will be on the right side of your print.  This is easy enough, but the students wanted to use wording.  OH BOY!  The image above is my sample and demonstration piece.  Once I showed the students how this reversed image works, their brains clicked and they finalized their designs.

Little Fishy

We used Styrofoam scratch plates to easily achieve the image, using pencils or paint brush handles to scribe the plate. Designing the images to print held everyone up for  a bit.  There is often that Blank Page Syndrome that all artists face.  I stressed that drawing skills were not necessary to achieve great results.  Abstract imagery complimented the designs and allowed for more freedom of expression.  That reassuring message got the designs done quickly and then we hit the ink.

Puffy Cloud

We had fashionistas who preferred to print on clothing.  This Puffy Cloud was adorable!  The vertical lines are an effect from the cardboard spacer that protected the bottom layer of the shirt.

Giraffes on Safari

Giraffes were printed twice.  Students learned the brightness of an ink color in the jar might not be effective on a t-shirt.  After a too-light-to-be-seen run of yellow, this artist chose pink for her Giraffes on Safari.

Words can be tough to achieve

This student discovered the woes of wording in printmaking.  She mastered the reversed image, but still struggled with one letter.  Lessons in life....

 

Warhol-esque

This artist went bold like Andy Warhol and printed multiple colors within the same page.  A lesson on Andy Warhol is pending.  No one had even HEARD of him!  There was vague recollection when I mentioned the Campbell's Soup Can prints that made him famous.

Special thanks goes to Lynn Dates and 171 Cedar Arts Center who graciously let me borrow the brayers (the rolling tool used to transfer the ink from the block to the paper), which saved the library over $70!  Community support as simple as that makes Corning, New York a very happy place to live and work.

Check back next month when we dive into the world of Coloring Books with Maegan Cook.

Thanks for visiting!