Jane Barwood Art

Tag: print making with children

  • “HEART OF GLASS” FAMILY ART CLUB – SATURDAY 21st March 2015

    This session was led by Bradford-based printmaker Ruth Fettis. After researching Ruth’s practice prior to the session, I was excited to be working with her. I like the detailed style and the story-telling themes in her work. I have done some print making before but I don’t have any expertise in it so I was looking forward to learning from Ruth’s methods. I really enjoy using processes in my work that take away the careful, delicate control I use in my oil paintings. I discovered that Ruth has recently collaborated with an artist friend of mine, Michelle Wren, on this fantastic 3D installation piece, currently exhibited in Bradford.

    “The City” with artists Michelle Wren and Ruth Fettis.

    Ruth’s idea for the Family Art Club session was for the participants to decorate a brown paper bag, using mono-printing. There was also collage and drawing materials that they could use.

    The process for mono-printing is very simple, as Ruth demonstrated. Printing ink is rolled out in a thin layer, using a brayer, onto a smooth surface. We used rigid sheets of thin plastic plexiglass. Then the participants could use one of two methods-

    1) the paper bag is carefully placed on the inked surface. Then draw your design onto the paper bag, pressing quite hard, with a sharp pencil. When the bag is lifted away from the ink the design should have transferred onto the underside of the bag.

    2) the design can be drawn directly into the ink on the plexiglass using the blunt end of a pencil. Place the bag or paper onto the inked surface and carefully press the paper down with fingers, or rub it down with the back of wooden spoon, depending on the thickness of the paper. For the thick paper bags we used the spoons and for the thin tissue paper we used our fingers. When the paper is lifted away the design should have printed onto the paper.

    Method two seemed to work better. I think because the paper bags were quite thick and the children had trouble maintaining the pencil pressure required to transfer the image. They were also rather over-enthusiastic with rolling out the ink so it was laid out too thick for the print to work.

    We had a very busy day with a constant stream of excited and eager participants, many of whom stayed for a couple of hours. The children were really proud of their work and everyone took their bags home with them. My niece joined the session and was so pleased with her cat themed bags that she’s saving them to use as gift bags for birthday presents for her nan.

    Here are some of the photos I took during the day (click on image to see full size) –

     

  • “Heart of Glass” Family Art Club – Saturday 17th May 2014

    “Heart of Glass” Family Art Club – Saturday 17th May 2014

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    This was the second Family Art Club session in this summer’s series that I was employed as Assistant Artist. I previously worked with Lead Artist Robyn Woolston. You can read the blog post for the first session here. On this occasion the Lead Artist was Claire Weetman and the other Assistant Artist was Hannah Bold.

    I was already familiar with Claire’s artistic practice, having worked with her before and having seen some of her exhibitions. Her work involves innovative ways of drawing and I was looking forward to seeing what exciting ideas she had developed for this workshop.

    As Assistant Artist I hoped to learn from greater experience of Claire’s practice and perhaps pick up some ideas and tips that I could use in my own work. In addition, I was keen to see how she had prepared for and how she ran the workshop throughout the day.

    Claire’s theme for this Art Club session was mazes, streets and houses. We sometimes speak of a “maze of streets” and it is easy to get lost in the unknown streets of an unfamiliar city. I believe that the idea for this workshop initiated from Claire’s residency in Shanghai, China. Claire often found herself lost in the streets of Shanghai where the street signs were not only in a different language but using a writing system incomprehensible to a westerner.

    For today’s session Claire brought along neoprene squares and wood blocks for people to make and design their own house stamps with which to print. We prepared a large maze on the floor of the workspace by drawing the maze onto paper using coloured tape. More mazes and labyrinths were projected onto another large sheet of paper fixed to the wall. There were also examples of mazes and stamps for the participants to look at and try out, along with lots of paper, coloured pens, stencils and inkpads for everyone to use.

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    As people arrived we showed them how to design and make a rubber stamp by drawing onto the back of the neoprene squares, then cutting out the design and sticking it to the wood block. They were encouraged to design their own mazes and use their stamps to make streets. After working at the tables on their designs they then added to the floor and wall mazes with their own stamps and mark-making ideas.

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    The children were very enthusiastic about making their own stamps and lots of the adults seem to enjoy it too. Some children went on unprompted to take the themes and ideas in new directions. One little boy decided to make the large maze into a game. He painted in a start and finish line and explained the rules to the others. Children began to make stamps of flowers, trees and animals as well as houses. One of the parents even made a Doctor Who Tardis stamp!

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    Many of the children were proud to have their drawings put up on the wall of the art space, while others wanted to take them home to show to parents and grandparents. Most of the children took their stamps away with them too.

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    It was an enjoyable day for artists and participants. It also inspired me to think about other methods of printmaking that I may use in my practice.

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