Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Cutting shapes with Scratch-Foam


Scratch-Foam, as I have previously posted, is an excellent surface for children (and adults) to use to create a printing plate. Lately, I've had fun cutting the foam into shapes. I simply used a pencil to draw the outline of the fish directly on the foam. After cutting it out I pressed lines onto the fish to add the detail that you see in the picture. I rolled printing ink with a rubber brayer directly onto the surface of the fish. As you can see, the ink does not settle into the lines that I have pressed into the foam and those details remain the color of the paper that you are printing on. I made an accordion folder and decorated with fish prints.

 

I'm starting a newsletter with DIY templates, news from my Etsy shop, and step-by-step photos of some of the techniques for my artwork and illustrations. The newsletter in early June 2018 will include a template for a simple pop-up book to make with children. Sign-ups on the right-hand side of the blog.

9 comments:

  1. Wow, I never heard of this foam before, I definitely want to look into it, thanks for sharing!

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  2. Cool fish prints! Looks like fun! :o)

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  3. I'm sorry if you are coming here from Tip Junkie to see the collaged flowers and this page keeps coming up. If you type vickismithartwithkids.blogspot.com on your own, it is my latest post.

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  4. Love these! Did you use two colors on the fish? It looks great!

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  5. If I remember correctly I just used one color. The one fish is lighter since it is a ghost print.

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  6. Hi Vicki!
    I'm wanting to use this in my class. Where do you buy the scratch-foam from? We are creating an under the sea mural! :) Thank you!!!

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  7. Hi Vicky, what did you cut the foam with? I've tried cutting with a craft knife but it always seems to pull and create a jagged edge in parts rather than a nice clean cut x

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  8. I just used little scissors. It is definitely trickier than cutting paper.I think part of the problem is the difficulty in zigzaging versus cutting a straight line. Good luck.

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