And that's a PRINT!

Ceri (aka The Morrigan) writes:

Thinking about visual arts in primary school, and about children making art, makes me think of finger painting.

Finger painting is one of those deeply satisfying activities for many children, because it is both visual and kinaesthetic.  You get to feel the paint and/or medium, squoosh it around, play with, and you can just play, or you can make marks, or you can just make a mess.  All eminently satisfying activities.

But we tend to stop the finger painting at about the time we finish kindergarten.  And I'm not sure why.

So here is an idea, from one of my art teachers, which we grownups loved, which makes 'adult' art (after all, if Salvador Dali, Degas and Picasso all did it, it can't be just for the under fives, can it?), and which recaptures all the squooshy fun of finger painting - but can be as sophisticated as next week!

MONOPRINTS!

Monoprints are one-off works of art.  You can use a desk as your plate (if you are willing to clean up afterwards), or you can do as I did and visit a hardware shop and buy pieces of laminex, or drawer bottoms.  Any flat smooth surface will work.  You can try with textured surfaces, but it is not as clean in the printing.

Add paint, move it around. Maybe add different colours of paint.  Use your fingers, tools, pieces of cardboard.  Use stencils, leaves, rollers or anything else which will make marks and textures.  When you are happy, take a clean piece of paper, place it carefullyl over the paint and smooth, using either a clean roller, a cardboard tube, the back of your hand or some other large-ish, flatt-ish object.  Peel the paper away.

Voila!  A mono-print!

Now, mono-prints are singular unique art pieces.  Curriculum Online has some lovely ideas  for materials and methods of printing.  There are lesson plans available at eHow, including step-by-step instructions.  There is some information - including links to a variety of resources at About.com Elementary Educators.

When the monprint is dry you can overprint, or draw into the image you have created (Dali and Degas did this a lot).

And best of all, this art form can be used in any curriculum and for any subject.  Link it to your work in SOSE, or maths.  Take it outside and link it to science and nature.  Make a monoprint of the way you feel about music.  Make more prints about the characters in books you are reading - use it to illustrate the text you are writing.  Have fun, include prints in your classes.

And if you are worried about the mess, make sure the children have art smocks!