Please answer these questions no later than Wednesday, April 20th at 12:30 pm.
1) Did you accomplish your goals for today's visit? Why or why not?
2) Could you gage whether or not the W.O.E. students understood the printmaking processes you tried to explain? How do you know if they "got it" or not?
3) What was most helpful (prop/metaphor) in trying to explain your chosen method of printmaking?
4) What are your expectations for our upcoming studio session with the W.O.E. students on April 25th?
5) What can you do to make the studio visit on April 25th go smoothly? What do the W.O.E. students need to do to make everything go well? What do the two instructors need to do (Steve, Myself)?
1) The goals Katie and I had were to come up with two strong ideas for prints that the children understood and liked and then to split the children up into two groups, one doing collagraph and one doing linocut. My personal goals were to get some drawings from the children on the linocut block that I could carve out before they arrived to the studio and to also give them a decent understanding of how the printing presses would work. I think the goals were all accomplished except that one of the kids from my group happened to be sick on that day.
ReplyDelete2) I think that they understood the rough concept of how the letterpress works, but I think that actually doing it or seeing it being done first hand will really cement the entire thing. I drew a diagram of the press and tried my best to explain it and I think once they see the actual press, things will completely click.
3) I compared the letterpress to a steamroller and I think that metaphor was helpful because it's something that they children have been exposed to before and it seemed to relate well to my chosen method of printmaking.
4) The studio session will be very productive and I'm looking forward to it. What I expect from the students will be help setting up the block in the press, working the paint, putting the paint on the press, actually printing on the paper and help cleaning up the press afterwards.
5) I need to have everything set up and planned out beforehand. The paper needs to be cut up and the registration marked, the blocks need to be carved and the letterpress needs to be set up and the colors have to be chosen. The W.O. students need to be patient when it comes to listening to how the process works and waiting for their time to use the machines and also about actually doing the actions. The two instructors can be helpful by overseeing the whole thing and making sure that all the groups get a chance to get things done.
1. I thought Clem and I successfully accomplished our goals because the students seemed excited to generate new ideas. We described the printing process and showed how to make images on the printing plates. After we described the process the students had more ideas to offer.
ReplyDelete2. I think the students understood the printing process because we showed them other pre-made plates. One of the kids cut-up the foam to make “texture” therefore I know some of the kids understood the effects of putting items on the plates. Also, one kid understood how the letters need to be put on in reverse in order to print the word correctly.
3. What helped the most to explain things was having the kids physically cutout shapes from foam. Being able to visually see their drawings of trees become physical shapes helped the children realize the transition form ideas to prints. Bringing in monotype prints and different plates also helped the kids to see the results of printmaking.
4. Our expectations are for Clem and I to have their ideas cumulated into two main plates. We are going to use some of the shapes they have already put together and create collograph plates. We expect to show them the process hands on and to work on the prints for majority of the class. Our group can hopefully use teamwork to come-up with two plate that successfully display our theme of recycling.
5. Clem and I collected the sketches and ideas that we had our group come-up with for the last time we all met. Clem and I can start the plates and prepare paper for the kids so that we can spend most of the class printing. The students have already given us plenty of ideas and there is not much the instructors can do that Clem and I cannot prepare ourselves.
1. Our main goal was for the students to come up with ideas and start creating collograph plates for our prints. The students completed their mini, individual plates, so this goal was thoroughly accomplished.
ReplyDelete2. The collograph plates were something that the students didn't really understand. They kept drawing detail on the foam pieces such as text, without carving it out or adding something else on top of it. It took a lot of repeating 'this is only going to show up as the shape you cut out of the foam unless you cut something else out or add something else on top of it' for them to grasp this concept.
3. We had a print and the collograph plate used to create it, so we could say 'see how this part is cut out? see how nothing showed up on the print where that part is cut out? that's what you have to do to put detail in your image'. it also helped demonstrate the concept of reverse imagery.
4. I expect the students to be a bit confused about the printing process. They won't know how much ink to put on the plate and they'll probably put too much. I want to complete one full layer on the print, most likely the carborundum layer because that is pretty simple and easy to register. I don't want to do a collograph layer because I want to use multiple colors and I think it'll take too long to have the kids doing them individually.
5. I will have the kids do some practice prints on newsprint for them to understand the correct amount of ink to use on the plate. This will also show them how to register. I will also do a demonstration print for them. I'll have little stations set up for them where they'll have a palette knife, a blob of ink, a carborundum plate, a brayer, paint brush, gloves, and some paper towels. Having everything there set up will make it go quicker and smoother. I want to emphasize the idea of repetition and doing the prints in the same way each time so that they are consistent.
1) I think that most of my goals for Monday’s visit were accomplished. However, it was difficult at times to get the three students in my group to cooperate. But, by the end of the session, they had created a sketch that had ideas from everyone; from the subject, to color choice, to materials for texture. Now I can use these ideas to create the plate and have everything ready by next Monday.
ReplyDelete2) I could tell that the students finally ‘got it’ when one student suggested using carborundum grit for the road texture, and another student suggested rice for grass texture. With these suggestions, I could tell that the students were thinking about materials as being useful for other purposes than what normally comes to mind.
3) I think that having an actual collagraph plate and a carborumdum plate that the students could pass around was very helpful. Having a print made from those plates let the students see how everything is reversed in printmaking. The metaphor of the plates being stamps was helpful too.
4) I expect things to go pretty well during our session on the 25th, as long as I can prepare the plate with the sketches that the students created on the 18th. Luckily, in addition to the sketch, the students were coming up with ideas for textures and color. So all I have to do is prepare the resources that the students suggested, and we can just focus on printing correctly on Monday.
5) To make things go smoothly on Monday, I can have everything prepared and laid out in a workspace that is easily accessible to the students. The students should just remember that the print is collaborative, so it will probably not look exactly like what each student was picturing. I think that it would be helpful for the instructors to explain how dangerous the equipment can be if used incorrectly, because the students may listen more if these warnings are coming from teachers.