Printmaking with Kids
While I am not inclined to take on such projects everyday, today was a holiday for us all as the boys were out of school and I was playing hooky. I absolutely love all things related to printmaking and had been waiting to dig into this EyeCanArt kit given to the boys on their 5th birthday. Yes, I waited until age 6, but it was worth it.
The monster designs were independently crafted by each of the boys, with some assistance on the cutting and overall strategy. We rocked this out in two stages (design-cut and glue, then print), and based on some of my project edits, we executed it a little bit different than the kit recommends. Mainly, this is due to the fact that I misplaced the proper papers included in the kit. {I stored them flat between books, and am baffled as to where they are.} It still worked with a tweak or two and was marvy for an inaugural attempt. {The main issue is that I used very thick tag board to build the design on, and more thick pieces for the design-including the soft foam sheets}.
I dug up some of the tools I had on hand for linocuts, including some super old orange speedball ink and a large brayer. This helped because we kept one brayer mainly for the ink, the other to burnish the image. I loved using the kraft paper for the boys images, as they were somewhat tribal in design and it made a nice contrast. Mine are ancient, from PaperSource, though I couldn't find them on their website just now.
