Art Savvy Questions & Answers

PRINTMAKING

Q: Can you offer any suggestions for working with the Gyotaku Fish Print Models and Sax Nature's Impressions Leaf & Fossil printing forms?

A: Printing with a three-dimensional object can be tricky, but the solutions are very simple. Use a soft, flexible, lightweight paper. An excellent choice is a rice paper. Masa is inexpensive and very responsive. Unyru and others of our rice papers are also good choices. When using any rice paper, spritz the sheet with clear water a few minutes before printing. Dampening the paper enables it to bend around the fish form with ease.

Once you've made a print of your fish or other model, take it to the next level. After it dries, add highlights and depth with colored pencils. The combination can be beautiful. Try making a collage of prints. This makes use of the not-so-perfect efforts. Another option is to print on fabric. Create T-shirts in a snap. Be sure when printing on fabric to use fabric paint (according to directions on the product!) instead of block printing ink. This will keep your design permanent through wearing and washing.

You can also use these forms to press into wet clay for a relief effect, or make rubbings of them with graphite sticks or hard pastels on soft, flexible paper.

Q: My middle school students have done block printing (relief printing) and screen printing (serigraph printing). Are there any other kinds of printmaking methods that would be appropriate for this level?

A: Yes, there are! Try drypoint etching, collographs and monoprints.

If you have a baby press, you can try intaglio printing. Use plastic drypoint plates and have the students engrave the lines of their design into the plastic with an etching needle. You can make etching needles with large sewing needles and short lengths of dowel (6"). Use pliers to break of the eye of the needle. Holding the needle with the pliers, use the pointed end to make a hole in one end of the dowel. Turn the needle around and force the broken end up inside the hole until you can no longer wiggle the needle.

When the drawing is engraved into the plate, use water-based block printing ink to rub into the lines. You may use more than one color. Wipe the surface of the plate until it is clean, leaving the ink in the lines. Soak some heavy paper in a tray of water. Take a sheet out and let the excess water run off. You may blot it between sheets of clean newsprint paper. Place inked plate ink side up on press bed. Lay the damp paper over the top. Put press blankets over paper and run through press.

Collograph printing is a form of relief printing that is adaptable to all levels. Create a multilevel collage on a sheet of cardboard. Use papers or other two dimensional objects that have some texture such as sandpaper of various grits, corrugated cardboard with the outer layer removed to reveal the "ripples", leaves or other natural items to fill in areas of your design. Glue down heavy string or twine to create outlines. Seal the collage on all sides with a waterbased varnish, such as the Sax Multi-Media Varnish. Apply block printing ink with a foam brayer and print on flexible paper (see Gyotaku printing above). For a lesson plan on Collographs, see "Covered Collograph Printing" in the Lesson Plan Ideas of our website.

Monoprinting is another type of printing that would work well for this age level. "Mono" means one, so "monoprinting" means that one print is pulled from a prepared plate. Try the Sax Portfolio Monoprint Classroom Pack. This kit provides watersoluble oil pastels and reuseable plastic plates to draw on. The pastels and water are used to create an image. One (or two) prints may be pulled from each prepared plate. The plates may be reused for many new images.