*Scroll to the bottom of this post if you are just here for printmaking teaching resources, and want to skip the waffling!
There are two main reasons for my What Happened at Camp updates.
Firstly, I need points of reference for the future. When someone comes up to me in a few years and says “Remember that time we printed with feathers, and you read to us all about Selkies?”, the chances are, I will have no idea what they are talking about. I can use my blog posts to refresh my memory. Unfortunately, my memory cannot be trusted to remember all those details all by itself; it is at full capacity right now, and I keep stuffing extra bits in. I’m running a little bit slower than usual.
The second, and most important reason is that I want the parents of campers to get a peek into what goes on in their kids’ lives while they are with me. I’ve been there; I’m a parent, and I love receiving pictures and anecdotes about what my kids get up to during the day (up to a point, I could take or leave many of the mind numbing details my ten year old relays to me with regularity every evening).
With this in mind, I feel terrible that I didn’t manage to write a post about the first week of camp. I was tired and disorganized, and chose to skip the week. However, five weeks later, I am ready to share the experience with you. Well, some of the experience, remember, I have a terrible memory. Speaking of terrible memories, I also have a tendency to block those out. Parents, if you want the full story, you may need to drag it out of your kids!!
Here is what I do remember:
The theme of the week was printmaking, so I was super excited all week. printmaking is one of my favorite things to teach. We learnt about different types of printmaking, and tried our hand at mono printing, screen printing, relief printing with natural objects, making our own blocks for block printing, and using all kinds of household, and found objects to produce prints with.
Highlights from the Week (it’s all coming back now!):
- Sticking foam to rolling pins, and printing with them
- Using embroidery hoops, screen mesh and Mod Podge to create hand made screens for printing t-shirts.
- Adopting a ladybug for the week. Don’t ask how the kids domesticated it, they just did.
- Exploring the woods near the camp, and making a see saw and balance beams out of fallen logs.
- Trying to stop ourselves from popping all the bubble wrap before printing with it.
- Spending a whole morning collecting leaves and feathers, and making spectacular prints with them.
- Watching the teacher (me) attempt to use a particularly fast piece of playground equipment called the spinning doughnut, and falling off it in a spectacular fashion.
Resources:
There are so many amazing videos on block printing on the net, here are two that the kids enjoyed.
Click here for a great introduction to different types of printmaking, courtesy of MOMA.
Thomas Yang, is one artist who uses found objects to print with, that we looked at. Check out some of his work here.
I found the book below at my local library, and it has some good projects for beginner printmakers to try at home:
Finally, check out my Pinterest board on printmaking with kids, if you are so inclined!
Now I’m off to forget it all again. Happy weekend to you all!
