6th grade student with his art pieces; he holds the original printing plate turned into an aluminum foil relief sculpture and one of his prints on watercolor paper.
6th graders recently completed a printmaking unit, involving many stages of production. First, we learned about Japanese artist and printmaker Hokusai, who created the famous print, The Great Wave At Kanagawa:
Hokusai, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, 1830
We also learned about other printmakers from art history, such as Albrecht Durer, M.C. Escher, and Rembrandt. Students watched Youtube videos about these artists to see examples of fine art printmaking and to learn the difference between intaglio and relief prints. Click on this link to see a listing of the videos. Then, students thought of a design fitting with the theme of "nature," brainstorming several ideas before settling on a good one to use for their prints. They used a resource picture as a drawing reference and carefully drew the image onto a piece of cardboard. Then, we used school glue to outline all the pencil lines. This took several days because we added up to 3 layers of glue. There needed to be a raised line of dried glue on the cardboard to take ink later on.
Finally, after days of glue application, we began printing. Students used brayers to roll ink onto their printing plates, paying close attention to applying an even layer of ink. It took practice to get just the right amount of ink on the plate and spend the right amount of time printing. When we were finished printing our limited edition of fine art prints and experimenting with colored papers, students used aluminum foil to transform the inky printing plates into a relief sculpture! We had fun embellishing the pieces with metallic markers, and some students used markers to hand color their prints.
I am proud of their work! These are lovely images, and we can use our work to bring beauty into the world by sharing with others! Students will turn at least one of their prints into a greeting card, and will be encouraged to give some away to friends and family. One of our super powers as artists is to find and create beauty and then share it with others!
student shows off his print and aluminum relief sculpture made from the printing plate
student shows off her print and aluminum relief sculpture made from the printing plate
here is a series of prints along with the glue-line cardboard printing plate
aluminum foil relief sculpture made from the glue-line printing plate
aluminum foil relief sculpture made from the glue-line printing plate
aluminum foil relief sculpture made from the glue-line printing plate
“From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.” Hokusai
