Collagraph

Grades 6-12 students completed their textured landscapes and used water-soluable printmaking ink in a variety of colors to pull a print. There were a few challenges to address in this project.  Students learned to mark the corners before pulling a print in order to line everything up correctly each time they layered a different color, they learned to work dark to light and how the colors can print over each other, and doing each color separately allows the colors to not dry out too quickly before pulling a print.  There were aspects of this project that were very bothersome...keeping all materials the same 1/4" height on the format and keeping items glued down for multiple prints.  I think next time I will work on a textured landscape and keep the format as their completed work, painting it all one color like Louise Nevelson might do.  Or another idea I had was to work on a canvas, adding texture to certain areas in the landscape while creating a painting. I really prefer the collagraph done with the sheets of craft foam.  I personally cannot stand working with craft foam for anything, with the exception of how beautifully they work for collagraph printmaking.

Grades 2-5 students created a collagraph printing plate using the craft foam sheets and had time to pull a print using a variety of colors.   Their assignment was to make a person using a variety of geometric shapes.  Their person needed to be doing some kind of activity.  Kids are so creative! They came up with cheerleaders, a person playing guitar, a runner, and many more ideas.  Sooo fun! Also, they could not overlap the foam or it would not be level and would not print properly.  For example, if they wanted to add a hat to the head, they had to cut off part of the head and separate the hat a bit from the head for it to look correct.  This project works best if they separate each piece from the one next to it, leaving a little gap.

Printmaking is such a hectic class for me to teach, with messy ink, students moving around the inking station, and rotating the students through so that everyone has time to print.  I sadly had no time for photos at this class.  Hopefully you can gain from my descriptions of the projects we did and for those of you with students, can see these concepts in the projects they brought home. I did get this photo at home of  a print that I pulled from my student's collagraph.  I just love her cheerleader!