Animal Stencil and Printmaking

In October, my school hosts an Art Gallery and I hang up themed art all the students and I have been working on together since August. For this year's theme I wanted to try printmaking with the students. Since some of the printmaking techniques may be too advanced for my young students, especially the 4 year old students who are still struggling with scissors, I decided to keep it simple with styrofoam prints. 

Since the 4 year old students need more guidance, I showed them 4 different patterns they can draw. They each chose one and they drew it on the styrofoam using a pencil. I had to go around to make sure they were pushing the pencil hard enough to make deep marks or to stop them from pushing too hard. 

Once students finished their pattern, we put paint on the styrofoam (I didn't have the proper ink so I made do with acrylic paint and it worked!), students painted as fast as they could so the paint wouldn't dry and I helped them press the paper onto their print. It worked fabulously!

The following week, students added animal shapes and stamps to their prints. I made animal stencils out of freezer paper. Students put the stencil on the paper (I taped it just to make sure it didn't dance around their paper) and they used a big pompon pushing up and down to copy the stencil with acrylic paint.

Once our animal stencil was dry we used a triangle stamp we made from cutting styrofoam. Students first did stamps inside their animal and then outside. I had to remind students to keep them spaced out, keep reapplying paint and to press hard to make sure it stamped correctly. 

Overall, the project ran smoothly and I am glad my ideas worked out. Students loved printing and using stencils. They were so amazed when they first raised their stencil and noticed they had an identical shape.