ART CAMP 2011 - DAY ONE PRINTMAKING

Another summer means another year of Art Camp, one of my favorite weeks of the year!!! This year we went all out with a larger group and some awesome projects that we have never done before!

Because we had more girls, I had much less time to take pictures so you'll have to fill in some gaps with your imagination. The theme for Day One was Printmaking and I absolutely adored this project. We started the day by covering some artist canvas with sand. The sanded canvases would be the base to display our prints. While we were at it, we covered some little treasure boxes with sand as well just for an extra little bonus. We were making a mess with sand anyway, why not?

Then each girl was given a rectangle of fun foam and told to free hand a drawing of any sea creature and cut it out. The details of the creature did not matter, it was the shape itself that we were going for. We had whales, dolphins, star fish, squid, the variety that the girls came up with was tremendous!



After each girl cut out her sea creature, I attached each one to a mailing cylinder that I had on hand with hot glue making our own, homemade printing press! So cool, right?! We then rolled out long sheets of paper down the driveway, "inked" up the press with paint and rolled the press along the paper, stopping to re-ink as needed. This created a beautiful repeating pattern of all of the sea creatures. I have to admit that the girls thought this was a lot of trouble to go through to get a print when they could have just inked up their one creature and printed it on to paper but once they saw the beautiful result, I think they were on board. After all, anyone can use a stamp - we made a printing press!!


After the was dry, we studied the prints that were made and each girl chose a section of the print that included the sea creature that they had created. We then mounted the print to the sanded canvas and embellished with shells! The results were really beautiful. While we were at it, we also embellished the little treasure boxes with shells for an additional little keepsake.


So that was it, Art Camp day one! Here is a shot of the printing press after we had used it and little Peanut with her completed project. She's so proud to keep up with the big girls!

Come back tomorrow to find out what we did on Day Two! (I'll give you a hint, the topic was symmetry).