Tag Archives: monoprint

May14

Art 1: Final Project (Part 2: Monoprints)

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I had planned to start on Monday, but an unexpected Mother’s Day gift from my son (stomach virus) caused me to start a day late.  While I felt bad taking time away from my students to work, I think they are strong and will not let it affect them.

Today was part 1 of the project:  monoprints.

Several years ago at a conference at UT, I learned how to create monoprints using water and tempera paint.  It was messy and tons of fun.  At the time, we used the paper to make paper kimonos.  Cute, but not really my thing.  I have used the technique another time as a background to learn about symmetry using the Maori Moko Tattoos.  I have since stopped that lesson, but I thought the monoprint technique was a great base for this artwork.

As I stated in part 1, I find that many people, myself included, have a hard time making those first marks on clean, pristine, white paper.  So to help solve that issue and hopefully allow the kids to jump right in, we created monoprints.

Our “plates” for this were my tables.  I covered three tables with water and 2 colors of tempera:  blue/yellow, red/yellow, and red/blue.

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Next the students would lay down their paper and pull their print.

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Some of the kids liked the process and made several monoprints.  Others were not into the mess or just didn’t want to make art today.  But I am happy with the outcomes and I hope they all have a great base for their multimedia artwork.

Now, the worse part of this activity is the clean-up.  I did have newspaper every where, but there were still a lot of dripping from walking the prints over to the counters.  And, unless you ask the kids to help, no one will.  They will all just sit and watch you clean and wipe up the floor on your hands and knees.  I was disappointed that out of my 65 students, only 3 offered to help clean.  I guess the brightside is it was cleaned to my standards.

Here are some of the fabulous results.

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May11

Art 1: Final Project 2014 (Part 1)

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Originally, I planned on being able to have one last project in art 1, spending a day or two reviewing for final exams, and then having a written test.  Not exciting, but it is what it is.  Then STAAR happened.  I didn’t really take into account that state testing would take kids out of my room for 3 days (and me for one to administer), thus having me lose almost a whole week and pushing back my plans.  There wasn’t really much I could do that could be done in less than 2 weeks that was meaningful.  And, I couldn’t just let them do nothing for 2 weeks.  Plus, I really didn’t want to write an exam.  It’s not my favorite thing to do.  So, I came up with a final project that would also become their exam grade.  I call it “”.

Over the next few posts I will document our exploration through the multimedia process.  I am not sure of the outcome, but I am excited about the journey.

First we will create monoprints using tempera and water.  I have done these before, albeit 6 years ago, for a project on symmetry and the art of Moko Tattoos.  This will become the “ground” or base for the artwork.  I have found that often students are intimidated by the white surface.  It’s so clean and error free.  Hopefully having this monoprint background will help break that fear.

Second students will find several images from magazines.  I suppose if a student really wants a certain image from the interwebs I will allow it.  They image will then be in b/w unless the student has a color printer at home.  I am hoping to halt images at 3 or 4 so it doesn’t become too crowded.

While I was out administering the STAAR test, students did 2 Arts & Activities reading about composition and leading the viewer through a composition. Here and here.  We will review the major concepts from the readings and I will expect them to create their artwork with the concepts in mind.

Students will then be asked to add more to their collages using a variety of other media: pencil, colored pencil, marker, sharpie, pen, paint, and well, I guess anything else we have used this year.  I am hoping they will had additional layers of depth and interest with the additional media.  I have created a pin board for them with some collages, but I really am unsure what to add to the board.  I don’t know what to search for to find examples to show.  But, maybe that is good as it will leave the door wide open and they won’t have preconceived notions of what this “should” be.

Pack your bags and join me on the journey to places unknown and unfamiliar.  My art 1 kids are always surprising me, I hope they do here as well.  (And I hope they will be able to work in our short time frame–this is the most nerve-racking part of this.)