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.

Assemblages

With a class of kindergarteners we constructed assemblages based on the work of the twentieth century American sculptor Louise Nevelson. We talked about her background and the characteristics of her work. The children were given an assortment of utilitarian household objects that they arranged and then glued to a sheet of masonite using Tacky Glue. We attached pieces of foam core to the four sides of the masonite base to make a shadow box. When the glue had dried we went out to the playground and I sprayed the boxes, with the children standing at a safe distance, using silver spray paint. When the assemblage is transformed into one color, the emphasis of the work is now on the simple shapes of the objects.

Tile Art

For this project I doodled the floral surface design on a pale green sheet of paper. I made a copy of my design using my printer. With Mod Podge I glued the copy to a very inexpensive ceramic tile from Home Depot. The tiles are a little over 4 inches square and less than 20 cents each. I also added a coat of Mod Podge on top of the copy to make it glossy. This is a great project to do with crayon drawings. You can either adhere the crayon drawing directly to the tile or make color copies.

Sandpaper Crayon Transfers

The darker image is an actual sheet of fine grade sandpaper. The drawing was made directly onto the sandpaper with layers of Crayola crayons. The sandpaper was turned over onto a sheet of white paper and a hot iron melted the wax of the crayons onto the paper. I protected my iron with a couple sheets of white paper. This method gives the final image a pointillist effect.

Gelatin Prints on Canvas

This is a gelatin print on canvas. I used paper doilies, a seashell, string, and bits of paper altered with pinking shears and a hole punch to either mask out sections of the gelatin plate or to make impressions directly in the acrylic paint that I was using as the printing medium.

Monoprint Greeting Cards

After making a stack of monoprints (previous post) I decided that there were many that had not turned out exactly as planned, but they had some nice elements that might be recycled. I cut the prints into squares and the squares into triangles, mixed and matched different color schemes and mounted them with glue stick on blank greeting cards. I'm glad I did not just toss them out.

Monoprints

For this monoprint I rolled printing ink onto a small sheet of plexiglass with a brayer. I drew the outline of the bird with a pencil directly into the ink. I lay a sheet of paper on top of the plexiglass and applied some pressure with my hand to transfer the image. After it was dry I added some color to the bird and leaves with a pastel chalk and added some definition to the bird with a black colored pencil.