Part of appreciating diversity is to understand it within ourselves. Many students in the United States come from multi-ethnic backgrounds, so I used that as the impetus for this exploration. I have done this project as a drawing, but decided 2 layer printing might be a fun media to explore. Before working on any art, students completed a simple worksheet identifying up to 3 cultural backgrounds. Those who were adopted were able to use their adoptive family backgrounds, and those who had less information were able to make general assumptions like European, Asian, Hispanic, African, etc.
We spent a day in the computer lab looking for 2 items. First was an animal from countries where the student's ancestors were from. These land, sea, or even insects were to have some characteristics that student felt aligned with their own personality in some way. (wise owl, quiet sloth, fast falcon..) The second item was a symbol for their culture that could be repeated as a background but I asked students to avoid flags knowing those would translate poorly into our project. Some helpful search terms were: Symbols of ____, National flower of ____, Heraldry of ____, Icons of ____, etc. Sometimes a pattern could be found, like clover for Ireland, but other times students put their image into a Google Doc and repeated it.
We spent a day in the computer lab looking for 2 items. First was an animal from countries where the student's ancestors were from. These land, sea, or even insects were to have some characteristics that student felt aligned with their own personality in some way. (wise owl, quiet sloth, fast falcon..) The second item was a symbol for their culture that could be repeated as a background but I asked students to avoid flags knowing those would translate poorly into our project. Some helpful search terms were: Symbols of ____, National flower of ____, Heraldry of ____, Icons of ____, etc. Sometimes a pattern could be found, like clover for Ireland, but other times students put their image into a Google Doc and repeated it.
All animals and patterns were printed out, and these were placed onto foam trays, similar to meat trays from the grocery store, and traced with ball point pens. They were re-traced more deeply for printing. We added a border to the animals, an echo of their shape, so that the delicate foam would be less likely to rip. This project could be done in linoleum or other printing material, I just had a ton of foam from Nasco to use.
We used 2 sheets of 18x24 inch paper. The first sheet was for practice, the second was for making 4 clean prints. Students first printed backgrounds on the practice paper. The next day they printed their animals. I had them print one animal in white first, try other colors, but then overlap a color onto their white printed animal to see how it made the color stand out. The white acted like white-out. We spoke about how this is what T-shirt printers have to do when printing on black or dark colored shirts.
Flowers by Andy Warhol used as an example of misaligned plates.
On final paper, they printed backgrounds again, but this time overlapped with a second color on the same plate, faded from the edges. This made colors pop, created mixtures, and I showed them how this was similar to a technique Warhol used. It was challenging to line up prints to get a perfect registration. With our Warhol example, we noted that slight misalignments could be an artistic positive. It showed the work was hand-made, every print was unique, and it did make the edges have a visual vibration that was often attractive.
In the last image below, you can see how I kept all the printing plates neat and organized. This was very helpful in passing out work daily.
In the last image below, you can see how I kept all the printing plates neat and organized. This was very helpful in passing out work daily.
With backgrounds done, we moved onto our animals. Many printed white first, some preferred the transparency of both the background and the animal showing. It enhanced the meaning of themselves being a blend of cultures. Those who had time continued by adding layers of color to their animals and even trying to print on colored paper as a bonus. As the project ends we will have a show-and-tell session, sharing our cultures, finding similarities, and closing with a review quiz that covers printing from Japan, German Expressionism, and Pop art.
Something I discovered was that by setting up my sink with buckets up-side-down was helpful in cleaning. Students put their plates under a stream of water and wiped with a sponge. This way plates were not under water, stuck to the bottom of the sink. It worked really well.
To close out the unit, I had student complete a quiz on printing tools vocabulary, technical information about the process, color mixes, historical connections, and an essay to explain how their image related to their culture, but also to themselves. This is the essay for the hore image that appears at the top of this blog post:
I'll close with these two samples of my drawing version of this project. You can see how it translates well into a printing project.
For more lessons and art education resources, please my "Art Projects" tab above, or visit Firehouse Publications. All their books are on Amazon, but when you order direct, you save 30% or more on books.
For more lessons and art education resources, please my "Art Projects" tab above, or visit Firehouse Publications. All their books are on Amazon, but when you order direct, you save 30% or more on books.
RSS Feed