K – 6 Art

Want to try a printmaking project that is quick, fun, versatile and inexpensive? Try collographs.

Maxi Moraga leads collograph workshop in NCM’s art education room.

I took Maxi Moraga’s fabulous collograph workshop last month at San Diego’s New Children’s Museum. This workshop tied in to the NCM’s current exhibition, TRASH, so we used lots of recycled/discarded items to create our printing plates.

Materials:

• cardboard rectangles (we used corrugated)
• bits of textured fabric, including mesh and screening
• yarn
• cardboard
• masking tape
• glue sticks
• white glue
• scissors
• printer’s ink in assorted colors
• brayers
• trays for ink
• paper for printing (cardstock is OK)
• colored pencils

We began by creating printing plates. We collaged various items to our cardboard rectangles (note: Maxi strongly encouraged us to use glue stick).  Here are some of the plates:

Collograph plates. Yarn is simply wrapped around the plate.

Tip: after completing plate, ask students to flip plate upside down on their chairs and sit on them for 60 seconds! Now your plate is really glued down and ready to print.

Next, we applied printer’s ink to our plates using these mini-brayers and recycled plastic trays. I love that the tray has a lip to keep the brayer constrained. Great when you are printing with young children!

Apply printer’s ink with a brayer.

We didn’t use a press. We simply put the paper over the inked plate and rubbed the paper carefully with our hands.

Options:

• use a paper towel to selectively remove ink from the plate before printing.
• create a print using two or more colors of ink
• color the paper before and/or after printing.

My favorite piece is the masking tape collograph made with corrugated cardboard.

Because of the emphasis on recycled materials, this would be a nice Earth Day project as well!

Whether you are a parent or a teacher, be sure to check out the New Children’s Museum when you visit San Diego. The museum offers art-making activities for children EVERY DAY. I wrote more about the museum in this post.

Do you have a favorite printmaking project?

What makes a good conference? Great workshops and networking, of course. Hold it in a drop dead AMAZING setting like San Diego’s New Children’s Museum (NCM) and you have a home run hit! San Diego Art Education Association held its first annual Visual Arts Educators Conference this month at the museum. After introductions by energetic new SDAEA president Ron Jessee and a keynote address, Tomoko Kuta, NCM’s Director of Education & Exhibitions, took us on a tour.

The New Children’s Museum is one of the only children’s museum in the United States dedicated to commissioning artists to create site-specific works for a youth audience.

Staff held a kiddie yoga class under this Layer sculpture the day we visited.

Jason Rogene’s sculpture/light fixture made of styrofoam packaging.

Jason Rogenes’ Megalitransponder includes kiddie climbing wall topped with cardboard installation.

I got to attend three workshops, all tied in to NCM’s current exhibition, TRASH. They were held in the museum’s art education studios.

• ’30-minute’ collograph printmaking with the museum’s art educator, Maxi Moraga
• sculpture/drawing project based on the art of Peter Opheim by fellow San Diego elementary art teacher and blogger Don Masse of Zamorano Arts Academy
• cardboard climbing squares group sculpture based on Charles and Ray Eames’ House of Cards, again by Maxi Moraga

Maxi Moraga leads collograph workshop.

Collograph print. No press required!

Sculpt/draw with Don Masse. I really admired this project when I first read it on his blog. So thrilled to try it out myself!!

Starting point for the house of cards sculpture. We collaged/painted our pieces, then assembled. This would be a great whole class or whole grade project.

As if all this wasn’t enough, we had a fabulous lunch from Urbane Cafe, gift bags with goodies from Blick and Artists and Craftsmen and a raffle with prizes donated by Blick, A&C and area education and arts organizations.  I won tickets to the City Ballet! Thanks also to local arts advocacy group art pulse.

A lot of foks in SDAEA, SD County Office of Education and NCM put together this amazing event. Thanks so much for a perfect day.

Like I said:

BEST. CONFERENCE. EVER.

 UPDATE: San Diego County art educators: check out our new SDCAEA Facebook page!

Happy Memorial Day from San Diego!

I spent yesterday walking around the harbor. Here is our sculptural version of the famous end-of-WWII photo, situated right next to the USS Midway.

Also in sight of the USS Midway – a large sculpture installation saluting Bob Hope’s contribution to the USO. The installation also features a real soundtrack of Bob entertaining the troops.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend…and giving thanks to all who have sacrificed for the US.

The 2012 YAM show was held February 18 at the San Diego Art Institute in beautiful Balboa Park. As always, the student artists felt very special and all the families had a great time.

Here are my elementary-level faves:

Middle school faves:

High school fave:

And here are my school’s entries: 5th grade plaster masks

Our 5th grade plaster masks.

SDAEA's Elizabeth Morton, Bruce Groff and Nancy Reitzler

Thanks guys for all your hard work.  It was a great show!

Beautiful late November afternoon at Scripps Pier, La Jolla.