Printing

Double Elephant Print states that ‘Artists are drawn to printmaking because it can provide a language of marks, a richness of colour and depth and other unique characteristics that can’t be achieved in any other way.’

I think that this statement is true as each print is a unique piece of artwork in itself and will not be recreated/copied exactly twice. It also means that children can really explore mark-making and line as the lines when printing are clear and defined.

During saturation week I lead four press printing lessons and from that was able to observe the children’s thought and discussion processes when carrying out these prints. We used polyboard and printed our tessellations meaning we had a cross curricular link with Maths meeting ‘Reasoning: K - search for pattern in their results; develop logical thinking and explain their reasoning’ and Art ‘4b - materials and processes used in art, craft and design and how these can be matched to ideas and intentions’ from the National Curriculum.

The children used discussion and questioning to explore printing and once they had created their printing plates they asked questions such as “what happens when I use too much ink? ... Can I put letters on? ... Can I print over my first one?” Through further experimentation they answered their own questions by trying out these things themselves rather than being told by me. 

Some examples of their work are below.