Hi Teachers! I have a new teacher, Ms J, joining me in my art classes this year. We started co-teaching the Printmaking unit. Ms J adapted some current resources and added new ideas of her own. The tuning-in activity included printing with LEGO bricks. She brought some from home and got the students to try printing with acrylic paint. It's funny how sometimes I think teaching is probably the only career that is widely acceptable to bring things from home for work purpose.
The uniform LEGO bricks produces interesting textures and shapes. While it might seem easy to carry out the activity, we had to remind them that the amount of paint that is picked up by the brick will determine if the print can be seen clearly. There is a way to coat the paint evenly before printing without the use of brayer in this case. Another point to note is that students have a tendency to use the brick like a paintbrush so the imprint of the LEGO bricks is not visible.
In the following lesson, students watched a video on making collograph and they sketch out a robot collography on their sketchbook. It's inherently important to discuss some common 'mistakes' in Printmaking because there are just too many elements to watch out for. It's great if students can just discover these elements but that would mean some students will not feel successful when the time runs out. As students need to do more than one print to get their ideal ones, they show the deconstructed parts of their sketch first and then transfer the drawings to a piece of foam before cutting and pasting them on a piece of cardboard. Next, the placement of the parts also determine the intricacies of the final print. Having the parts pasted without gaps would just yield a big blob of ink while gaps that are too distance will make the work looks sparse.
