Monday, January 9, 2017

Printmaking promotion - free activities for the public














A local art center I have been involved with since their formation recently approached me to see if I would be willing to give printmaking instruction in various techniques in several short duration demo workshops.


These are being offered free of charge for the public to drop in and try their hand at...sort of a sampler session that they can come in, spend an hour or more if they desire and create a small art work they can take home.

The center acquired a used etching press earlier this summer and want to offer printmaking workshops and possible rental of press time to those who might like to learn some of the various techniques or have previous experience.
By offering sampler sessions the idea is that if some are interested in taking it further we can offer long duration more intensive workshops (for a fee so we can cover artist fees, cost of materials).

We kicked off the new year yesterday with the first of the free workshops aimed at all ages. It was an introduction to very basic relief printing that I officiated. Participants were given a small piece of scratch foam printing plate and a pen. They were encouraged to draw an image into the surface. Then colour was applied to the surface of the plate with washable marker inks.
Dampened Japanese kozo paper was set over top and by either pressing with finger tips or rolling a soft rubber brayer across the top the image on plate was transferred to the paper. Where indentation from the ballpoint pen had been made a white line appeared on the print version on paper.

This activity had a lot of young artists in attendance but we also had a couple of adults try it out. Here are some examples of what a few participants created.