After my success with reduction printing using printing foam with grade twos last year, I was keen to try this technique again with an older group of students. These tri-colour prints were completed last term by my grade five students.
We began with a lot of work on self-portrait drawing. (I will post some of the results of these original drawing sessions soon).
Once each student had completed a self portrait drawing in pencil, I reduced their drawings on a photocopier and had each student trace the outline only of their drawing onto a small piece of printing foam. The procedure for printing was the same as that of the
fruit prints by grade twos.
This is not a quick or easy project, but with perseverance children can produce some pretty sophisticated results - and it's still easier and safer than lino printing.
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.
