I closed out the 2016-2017 school year with an ode to Mo Willems and his fabulous "Pigeon" series of books. A favorite in our school, just about every child knew both the character and the author. Because of their popularity, I didn't have to work too hard to motivate the kids to make these adorable pigeon prints.
First we read a few of the stories. If I don't have time to scan the book and then edit it onto a PowerPoint for my Smartboard, I'll use my visualizer to read the story. I just like the idea of having the images as large as possible for the kids to see.
After the reading, I did a quick demonstration on how to draw the pigeon, by June, the kids didn't need a guided drawing for this, just a demo was sufficient. After they drew their picture on paper I did a follow-up demo that showed them how to trace over their drawing with a pencil using hard pressure onto a Styrofoam printing "plate" and then had them re-trace the indentations on the plate in ballpoint blue pen, creating thick lines.



The process of printmaking is just as impressive as the end results and so when hanging these I included the plate, the not-so-good print, and the finished artwork. It's important for everyone to see just how much work goes into making a finished print! (If only they knew how much work goes into it for us too!)
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