Collography

Here was my dilemma: How do I teach a meaningful printmaking lesson with practically no printmaking supplies? That's right, no brayers, no heavyweight paper, no printing inks, blocks, cutting tools, and as I'm sure you can see where this is going, of course, no press.

I had read a lesson on collography using mat board and pieces of cardboard/ oak tag glued on top of it. Aha! I thought, there's my starting point. I cut 5 x 7" pieces of mat board, then had the students use tacky glue with heavy weight watercolor paper cut outs to form the abstract shapes. I would have liked them to create images, but I figured this was a good starting point for them, especially since many of them never did printmaking before. Making do with the materials I did have we used very (VERY) cheap sponge and plastic brayers, the ones used in pre-k activities, which btw were terrible. Light weight white paper for printing on, tempera paints as printing inks (another ugh) and wooden blocks as pressing tools.

All things considered the lesson was pretty successfull! The kids loved the idea of rolling out a 'rainbow roll', creating their own ''plate, and using the printing method to create a new and different image every time they pressed it. However, I wouldn't reccomend tempera paints (ever!) and cheap sponge brayers (ever! ever!), but it's better than not doing the lesson at all. And on the up side? My real printing supplies should be arriving very shortly...and now that my students have some experience with printing, their results should be even better with the right supplies!