These relief prints were done recently over a few weeks by grade 2 and 3 students. Students began by drawing a design featuring a piece of fruit. Their design was drawn with permanent marker onto a piece of polystyrene printing foam. The outline of the picture and anything they wanted to remain white were then carved into the foam using a pencil. We then made three prints on paper using yellow ink. The following session I asked students to carve their foam block by drawing into the area they wanted to remain yellow. We then printed with red ink over the top of our yellow prints and the following session we eliminated the red areas from our foam block and printed with blue ink. This was a pretty complicated process for the kids to understand, but they got the hang of it through the process of doing. I think their prints are amazing for such young students and they look just as good as lino prints.
These are gorgeous. I am in the middle of a reductive printing lesson myself with 5th graders doing self-portraits, and I really like the simplicity of the piece of fruit! I'll try it with my younger kids for sure.
ReplyDeleteThose look great. Years ago I did a similar project with layers of construction paper, each layer took out the underlying color. It was a hard concept for the kids to learn and for me to teach but in the end we were all very satisfied with the outcome.
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful! Your students did a fabulous job!
ReplyDeleteThese are STUNNING! Great work :)
ReplyDeletewow I've never seen anyone pull off reduction prints with foam before! Great work!
ReplyDeleteReally vibrant! The primaries look great layered. I like how you used an easy to draw subject and kept the focus on the process.
ReplyDeleteRina at k6art.com
Wow! I never thought to do reduction printing with such a young age! They turned out to be so incredibly successful and truly stunning!
ReplyDeleteThey should be proud!
These turned out amazing!! You are quite the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWow. Fabulous! I don't know if my printing inks are good enough for this but I'm going to try it with a simple idea. I never did reduction printing w/kids before but these are so gorgeous I want to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!!!! I can't wait to try this with my little artists!
ReplyDeleteFantastic! These are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFantàsticos tengo que hacerlo con mis alumnos!!
ReplyDeleteGreat application, much safer than cutting lino too. How thick was your foam?
ReplyDeleteThanks Jo - the stuff I use is less than about 5mm thick but not sure exactly? Quite thin!
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ReplyDeleteHow do you get them to accurately print on exactly the same place each time? I am doing the same thing with my year 4 class, but the kids are not so good at that part..
ReplyDeleteHi Penny - yes, tricky! As you can see by my photos, they aren't always accurate. I find having a smallish sized square or rectangular shape block helps and then drilling into the students that they must always line up the corners as carefully as they can.
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