City Reflections

This is a project I found on another art blog. http://laughpaintcreate.blogspot.com/2011/08/city-prints.html This was a fourth grade project that reviewed warm and cool colors. It was also fun for the children to print. We painted the background the first week and then started work on our printing plate (foam). The next week we finished our drawing of the city and printed.  They really came out nice and the children had a great time doing them.

Fall trees

The children love this lesson. We discuss trees and how to draw them. Then discuss the background. Students draw a tree and fill in the entire background, no empty white space. We then use ONE finger to create all our leaves for the tree by painting fall colors with our fingerprints. We talk about the brown leaves ending up on the ground. It doesn't take much in the way of supplies but the results are always good. Hard to believe these two were made by first graders.

 

Leaf Prints

I like to do this leaf printing project in the fall. I ask students to bring in leaves and I bring in some from home. We classify each leaf. With third graders, I talk about mixing the paint right on the leaf to get intermediate colors. I use tempera paint cakes and tell my students to keep the paint on the dry side. Paint the side of the leaf with the veins, turn the painted leaf over onto paper and rub with a paper towel to get a good print. Lift the leaf off.

Neon Faces- Printing

This is a really cool printing lesson. It may be done with any subject, but for the last 4 years, I have used faces. I think it gives a strong , personal  feel to the finished project. Students select a face to draw.I have about 45-50 faces from newspapers& magazines to choose from) Draw just the face onto a 6''x8'' piece of thin paper and tape it to a 6''x8'' piece of styrofoam. Gently go over the lines, remove the paper and go over the lines again. Remind them not to write their name on the front of their styrofoam as it will print backwards.
I have them each print 4 copies, which we then let dry and tape together. Presto--instant Andy Warhol.

printmaking

This is both a printing lesson and a Complimentary Colors lesson. It's done using styrofoam  6'' x 8'' pieces. The students draw their name  REVERSED and letters BACKWARD on a 6x8'' piece of paper., then use rulers to add patterns and designs onto their letters. The design are then taped to the styrofoam and the students go over all lines. When this is done, remove the paper ( which is generally in pieces) and deeped any lines which do not show up well. Print the styrofoam 4 times, let dry, and tape together.   Susan