Palo Alto Libraries Monoprint Teen Workshop

Colography is a fun type of monoprinting and a nice intro to printmaking. I conducted a workshop on Monday for the Palo Alto Libraries teen summer program. Here are some of the results. This is good project for all ages. Tip: remind students that if they include words they must be created backwards as the print will be a mirror image of the printing plate.

Below: Printing plate being inked:
























































Above Printing plate and print.

If you want to try it you will need:

1. glass plates with edges taped up (you can get scrap glass from a glass shop)
2. water based printing ink
   
3. rollers for inking and for pressing
4. paper for printing (I use Japanese calligraphy paper...cheap from Daiso)
5. card stock such as cereal boxes (to cut and glue down)
6. matt boards. These are the printing plates (You can get free from framing shops, just ask for scraps)
7. white glue
8. hot melt gun (to attach lace and other objects)
9. toothpicks (good for creating raised lines)
10. pencils
11. scissors
12. paper towels to lay plates on
13. small container of water (you may need to add drops of water to plates of glass if ink gets too thick)

Step One: Cut and tear pieces of cardstock paper (cereal boxes) and glue down on to mattboard with white glue.


















Step Two: Attach other elements such as lace and buttons. Attach these using a hot melt gun.


















Step Three: Squeeze some ink onto the glass (one color per glass plate). Using a roller spread the ink out so that you have an even layer on the roller. Roll over the printing plate. You can also use a brush to apply the paint to the printing plate.



















Step Four: Take a sheet of paper and place it over the inked printing plate. Roll over the paper with a clean roller or use your fingers to lightly but firmly press down on the paper to transfer the ink.

Step Five: Peel off sheet slowing and place it wet side up on a drying rack.























Below: This print was created with quick sweeps of an inked roller to the printing plate. I love the texture! It reminds me of old barns from my childhood memories of Ohio and Kentucky. This piece was created by one of the few boys in the class. The original sketch had a maze like pattern in it. I suggested that he add bits of toothpicks to create that pattern if he wanted it to be visible in the print. Instead he decided to brush on the ink and do a print. I am so glad that he did. It is a great piece.






















Below: This print was created by drawing patterns with the hot melt gun on the printing plate. A diagonal line was created from toothpicks. The student applied different colors to the printing plate before pulling her print. The result is really beautiful and I hope it was framed and displayed. The diagonal line anchors the busy swirls of the hot melt lines. The two dots in opposite corners also add balancing elements. There is tension and balance in this piece.
























Below: City scape of New York City. I think this teen was Russian. I like how the simple addition of lace on the printing plate resulted in the allusion of clouds above the buildings. It took a lot of patience to create all those windows and then glue them onto the buildings on the printing plate. I enjoy how the windows are staggered on the buildings in the foreground while the windows are arranged in an orderly grid on the back building to the right. This contrast makes me think the windows on the two building in the foreground are dancing or conversion with each other.

High School Recycled Materails workshop

I conducted two days of workshops at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino last week. These workshops were in the sculpture classes of Charlotte Kruk, an amazing teacher and artist. She and I are kindred spirits as we both use recycled food wrappers in our art and when we met we were both working on matador jackets (she has since completed hers and I am still working on mine). Here is her artist site: http://www.kruktart.com/ Anyway, I had a blast in her seven classes.

Charlotte had asked the students to bring in their own recycled wrappers, but being a seasoned teacher, knew that many would forget so she bought big bags of Dum Dum lollypops. I also brought in some of my manga comics, Asian food wrappers and a big container full of produce netting (the colorful mesh bags onions come in).

It was a dramatic and fun opener to the project when Charlotte passed out the candy while insisting that not a single wrapper could go into the trash cans. Charlotte had also created these wonderful floral centerpieces for each work table. They were made of real and silk flowers. I was so impressed by her enthusiasm and creative set up. I will certainly take a lot of cues from her in my future workshops. She was just great.

I started the workshop with a 15 minute Powerpoint presentation about the inspiration for my work and the step-by-step process I use. Then I demonstrated how I shape and twist the wire to create a flower and attach the paper. My step-by-step board helped some students when I was at other tables assisting. At first I was struck by the students' attentiveness and then realized that they were quietly content because of the tasty lollypops in all their mouths! Some determined boys ate nine or so lollypops for the wrappers and weren't feeling so good. I told them that was truly suffering for your art!









































Below: Wire orchid covered in chocolate wrapper. The student really looked at the flower form.
































Anime flower below.































It was fascinating to see the different creations. Many students made cleverly original flowers that I never would have dreamed up, like this one below. Very inspiring.
















































Another idea Charlotte had that I thought was great was to deconstruct some of the silk orchid flowers and place them on each work table. This helped the students look with a clearer eye at the different forms and layers of the flowers. I will be going back on Thursday to take pictures of the completed projects. This was a really fun experience and I hope to do more workshops like these in the future.

Palo Alto Library Wire Insects Workshop Day 2

On Wednesday the children came back to the second workshop day to complete their wire insects and cover them with their handmade paper created on Monday.

(Completed insect below)















The papers came out nicely. Here are some samples.
























It was interesting to see the very different wire forms the students created. Each insect had its own personality.






































































One student also made a flower that was really wonderful as just a wire form.

























































My little helpers! My kids were really great fun and they helped carry my supplies and kept occupied during my teaching. They even tried out creating their own craft objects with wire and papers and clay.

Prepping for Palo Alto Libraries Art Workshops

Today I started prepping for the teen art workshops I'll be conducting next week for the Palo Alto Libraries. The theme is Metamorphosis. The project is to make insects of wire and paper pressed of recycled papers. The workshops are broken down into two 1.5 hour sessions. In the first session the teens will be making recycled paper with lots of scraps of Asian food wrappers, kozo paper, manga and other papers. Students will help to create the pulp and will each fill a ziplock bag with the scraps they want to add to their papers. They will be using small paper pulling screens which I made of picture frames and window screen netting. They will pull these screens through the pulp vats and then press the sheets with a sponge to transfer onto wooden boards. Each student will be able to make five or so sheets, perhaps more. Those who finish early will then begin sketching the insect they will create in wire. Each student will draw their insect in at least two different views: cross section and top view.





















On the second day, the students will create the insects from their sketches. They will be using floral wire and pliers. I found these great small pliers at JoAnne Fabric. $7.00 for a set of three. Can't beat that!



















First they will twist the basic form of their insect out of the floral wire.

















Then they will trace the outline of the shape they will cut out of their paper. It is important to remember that the tracing and wrapping is done from the back side.




















Next, each student will cut out the shape.




















Glue is added and the paper snipped at curves.




















The paper is wrapped around the wire and the insect is flipped right side up.



















Finally, the students will add final touches of wrappers, manga and other bits of paper. We'll also be glazing the pieces with a UV resistant glaze.





















The students will also have the option of filling some of the volume of their insects with produce netting. Below is an example of a bee with no papering and only produce netting filling it.

















I was also asked to submit a proposal for a permanent installation that would be partly teen created. It was not selected, but was fun to contemplate and sketch. Below is the concept.
It would be a two layered hanging tapestry created of recycled papers pressed from graphic novels, manga and wrappers. The forward layer would be made of dark blue papers (recycled papers with blue dye added) cut and stitched like a quilt between sheets of clear vinyl. The back layer would be made of scraps colorful manga and graphic novels and kozo papers.