High School Printmaking Unit: Post Twelve -- Stencil Prints

In an ideal situation I would have liked to introduce the students to silk-screen printing, but the room was not set up for using screens. Instead I included hand-cut stencils in the print unit. Students first drew their designs on paper, then transferred them to transparency film. The film, once cut made an ideal stencil material. It could be cleaned off and reused numerous times. This was a very experimental project that I introduced as an extra-credit assignment for students who needed a boost in their studio grade. I did not put any constraints on the project, so students made a mix of abstract and representational images; most used simple shapes.

For color, students used printing inks applied with either a brayer (for more flat coverage) or a bristle brush (for a stippled or tonal appearance).

Here are a few of the prints that were produced:

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Eleven -- Reductive Block Prints (Woodblock Variation)

A more advanced version of the reductive block print project replaces the soft-cut printing blocks with basswood or soft plywood. The carving and printing process remains the same, but the material of the block is more challenging. The wood grain influences the work in two major ways: 1.) It effects the direction students are able to carve - with the grain works best and produces clean lines, against the grain is more difficult and produces rough lines; 2.) The texture and patterns of the wood may also lend themselves to the final print.

I did not have the opportunity to have the students (even the more advanced ones) try out wood block carving, but I did make a sample:

Finished print.

After the first carving.

The first ink color.

Later in the process.

The last ink color.

   

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Ten -- Reductive Block Prints

After the stamp project, the use of lino-cutting tools for the reductive block print project was the least complicated aspect of what the students set out to accomplish. They faced two new challenges:

• First they needed to come up with their own design idea. I no longer provided them with a specific subject prompt (like nature in the collographs or abstract symmetry with the stamps). The only guidelines they were given were that they should include pattern if possible, include perspective or depth, use at least three colors (not counting the white of the paper), and make an attempt at visual texture in their mark-making.
• Once they had the design figured out and transferred to the carving block, the next big challenge was planning out what to carve away first. To achieve the reductive block print using multiple colors, students had to plan out the color areas in advance. White areas get carved away first. Then they work from lightest to darkest color areas. With each color more of the block is carved away, essentially destroying the block by the end of the process.

Students created a series of 6 - 8 prints each. They had to use registration marks to line up their prints each time a new color was inked up. Some students purposely off-set their registrations to allow some of the color layers to show through.  And depending on how much ink was applied, the layers did sometimes bleed through, but usually this added to the prints' quality.

There were so many great prints made that it is difficult to choose only a few, here are the "top ten" as determined by in-class critique:

 

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Nine -- Hand Carved Stamps

As the students continued their exploration of printmaking the stamp project was transitional. It acted as the bridge between what they had been doing thus far and the more complex project that lay ahead. The complex project being reductive block prints (which will be featured in the next post). To familiarize the students with the carving tools they would be using and with the the subtractive nature of block printing (pretty much the opposite of collograph plate building), I decided that a simple stamp making project was in order.

To make the stamps, the students used 1" square cut erasers (obtained at the local dollar store). Six stamps could be made using each 3-pack of erasers (the erasers were cut in half). Technically if the students carved both sides, each pack could make 12 stamps.

The concepts the students worked with were symmetry and abstraction. Each carved stamp, when printed had to be a component of a symmetrical design. This will be clearly understood when viewing the finished products. To help the students to understand the concepts, I relied heavily on demonstration and visual aides. Without the demonstration, I feel that students would have surely struggled. Part of the demonstration, of course, included safety and handling of the tools (xacto knives and lino-cutters).

To colorize the stamps the students moved away from printing ink. Instead water-based markers were used. This allowed the students more control in the color patterns, but at the same time they had to work fast because the pigment would dry quickly. If the students took too long to apply the stamp to the paper, the print would not show up very well. Aside from the carving, timing was a big challenge that many students had to work out on their own.

Unlike the other projects, this one only produced one or two finished pieces per student. Here are some of the finished stamp prints:

The artist whose work the students were asked to compare the project with was Escher. The students easily found parallels between their stamp designs and the tessellations created by the artist. They also truly expressed an appreciation for the complexity of the tessellations by reflecting back on the challenges they faced in creating their own symmetrical imagery.

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Eight -- Embossed Prints, A Mini Lesson

Those students who finished the collograph project early or who simply wanted to experiment with embossed prints used objects and materials found in the classroom or brought from home. Some students attempted to emboss old keys or paperclips, while some cut cardboard and built printing plates. Embossing was a natural extension of collograph printing because much of the approach is the same. All that is missing is the ink. Embossed prints don't photograph very well, however, so it is difficult to appreciate them unless viewing them in person.

Here are a few of the more successful embossing explorations:

 

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Seven-- Collographs - The Pressure Is On!

After the students had time to build their collograph plates (about three classes) and print by hand-rubbing (one more class), it was time to introduce the printing press. The room I was in had two presses available - a very large press that allowed students to work on larger paper or team up and pull two prints at once, and a small table top press that was easier to crank. Students still preferred the excitement of using the larger press, though!

The small printing press.

The major difference between working by hand and working on the press was that the paper needed to be prepared for use on the press. This meant that the students had to soak their paper in water for a few minutes and blot out the excess moisture. For some this was trial and error because the paper would end up too wet and stick to the printing plate or come apart. Wetting the paper allowed the pressure of the machine to press the paper into all the recesses, pulling ink with more saturation and effectively embossing the prints at the same time. (There will be another post on embossing, which some students who finished early experimented with).

The general consensus among the students was that they felt the prints pulled on the press were more successful. They liked how the press brought out texture and how the ink was more saturated.

Here are some beautiful prints made using the printing presses:

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Six -- Collographs (by Hand)

After a thorough exploration of monoprinting techniques, the students were introduced to the collograph. This is a great printmaking project (even as a stand alone, separate from the printmaking unit) because it uses a lot of recyclables and therefore is kinder to an art teacher's limited budget. I did splurge a little and purchase pre-cut 5" x 7" pieces of chipboard for the students to use at bases for their printing plates. They brought in their own thin cardboard (mostly cereal boxes) to cut out and collage onto the plate. Some students did try using corrugated cardboard, which is more difficult to cut and does produce a distinctly different print quality. Twine was yet another optional material that a few students chose to integrate into their designs (you'll see a sample of this in the next post).

Since the process of spreading out the ink is about the same throughout all of the printmaking methods in the unit, I focused more on the building up of the printing plate. The students were given a prompt of creating a design abstracted from nature. This was perhaps the most challenging aspect of the entire project. Once they had the design drawn out, they transferred the image to the cardboard and then carefully cut it out with an x-acto knife and glued it to the chipboard base. Elmer's glue (not the washable kind) works great and can also be used  to seal in the entire printing surface.

In terms of the printing of the plate and application of the ink, I encouraged students to be a bit more adventurous with color choice and also to consider off-set or layered printing. This would further abstract their imagery and also create greater visual interest.

Initially students were asked to pull their prints using a hand-rubbing approach. The next printing day would allow them to explore the use of a printing press (see the next post).

Here are some of the prints that were made using hand-rubbing with a barren:

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Five -- Monoprints Method Four

The fourth and final method the students explored while making monoprints was the most challenging for them, mainly because it required them to use very little ink at all. In addition the ink, once rolled out over the entire surface of the plexi-glass, had to be left to dry for a few minutes before using it to pull a print.

As the ink dried to a tacky state the students worked out a few sketches of what they would like their images to be. These sketches would then be placed over a second clean sheet of paper which was placed gently over the ink. Using a sharp pencil or a wooden skewer students could trace over their drawn lines. They had to keep their hands from pressing on the paper as they traced, which presented a second challenge. If they allowed their hands to rest on the paper and press down the pressure would transfer the ink to the paper and potentially ruin their imagery.

The process is very similar to using carbon paper in transferring one image to another.

Here are a few of the more successful prints:

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Four -- Monoprints Method Three

Methods one and two were both such smashing successes that I upped the ante with method three. Method three of the monoprint section of the printmaking unit for the high school students required them to use some advance planning in the creation of their prints. Although I'm sure some of them put some thought into their previous prints, for the most part it was all about very spontaneous exploration. And although I fully encouraged continued exploration with the different processes we were using throughout the entire unit, I felt it was time they did some pre-planning. So as a homework assignment (and really I give so few of those when teaching art) the students were asked to make four simple 9 x 12 sketches. These sketches were used to develop their ideas in class.

As part of the third class on monoprinting I introduced using black ink. Up until then the ink choices had only been color because I did not want their prints to get too murky, but for this method black was important. The students spread out the black ink on the plexi-plates and used tools to clear ink away in selected areas. The areas corresponded to their sketched ideas. Then they pulled black and white prints (no color yet). Once those prints had time to dry a little, they added color to them in selective areas to create either representational or abstracted imagery. Some students tried doing this by "eye-balling" where the color should be placed on the plexi so that it would show up in the appropriate area of the print. Others were very methodical and placed the black and white print upside down under the plexi so they could still see it faintly through the back of the paper. This allowed them to use more control and precision when applying the ink for the color areas. And there were also students who layered the color ink over the black ink. So many options became available the more they experimented.

As always, there were so many prints when the class was over. Here is a small selection:

High School Printmaking Unit: Post Three -- Monoprints Method Two

The exploration of monoprint continued with the students as they took some tentative exploratory swipes at the ink. For the second method of making monoprints we kept the pattern and movement theme, but we went bigger (9 x 12 or so). To obtain neater edges I encouraged the students to mask the borders of their printing papers with tape, which could be easily removed once the prints were dry. This was helpful because I was working with various sizes of plexi as the printing plates and some of them were much larger than the papers.

As before the students applied the ink onto pieces of plexi-glass. I began offering more suggestions for how much to use, like comparing the amount of ink to the amount of toothpaste you might squeeze onto your toothbrush. Some students clearly use A LOT of toothpaste. But for most this analogy helped them avoid using too much ink. The ink was spread around with brayers the same as before, but now something new was introduced. Students were asked to manipulate the ink once it was rolled out. They could use stiff brushes (the ones that would normally be tossed in the trash), scraps of matt board, toothpicks, palette knives, q-tips dipped in water, tissues -- pretty much anything they could think to use was fair game.

Again we ended up with hundreds of prints, but here is a small selection: