We finally have a winner!!! 

I have finally found a highly successful method to the printmaking process. I have posted about my troubles with the printmaking process before: 

Winter Animals Reduction Printmaking
Tips for Middle School PrintMaking

But now I finally feel like I have learned how to make the process for run smoothly for my classroom, my students and my sanity. With fabulous results to boot. 

I have been gathering famous structure pictures for eons and I have been plotting the best way to do a 'famous places' project.
What materials? What is the theme? How to implement?
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I decided to finally just go for it with printmaking and I am so glad that I did. 

Day 1
I introduced the printmaking unit with a story about how this was the absolute favorite thing we did all year to a 6th grade boy who had spent much of the year grumbling and complaining about every thing we had done so far. He was happy as a clam when I put that brayer in his hand, even though he did not pay attention at all to my instructions the first day and his design was pretty much terrible. All well!!

After explaining that printmaking is a process in which we will be making several copies of the same image, I explained that students needed to pick a famous structure that they were interested in researching so that they would be excited to work on it for several art sessions. The structure needed to be man-made and if it was a popular one like the Eiffel tower, they needed to think of a way to customize it that did not involve the everyday common place 'v' birds and sun in the corner because 100 kids had already done that. And not just a moon and stars, they had to really think of something creative, perhaps a plane or hot air balloon in the sky or themself in front of the structure taking a selfie. 

Students had access to TONS of books from the library. I ended up going back for more after my first 3 classes requested the Taj Mahal, the Burj Khalifa, and the Saint Basil's Cathedral in Russia. I have some very curious kids! Step one was to create a practice sketch in their sketchbook and start planning their stamp. 

Supplies
pencils
erasers
rulers
dry erase boards and markers (option for kids to warm up)
books and visuals about famous places
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Day 2
Carving the stamp. 
Once students had their design planned, I gave them a piece of 6X9 paper so they could design their stamp. We used a pencil to draw the design and plan the background. When they had it all sketched out, they brought it to me for approval and I gave them a piece of 6X9 scratch foam and taped their sketch to the foam. They used a colored pencil to transfer the design to the foam. 

The colored pencil only lightly transfers the design. To really make it show up, students had to lift the drawing off the foam and trace over their lines with an ink pen. I had to borrow a bunch of ink pens, but this is a brilliant idea thank you Cassie Stephens!!! The ink pen forces them to make the lines deeper and they can tell what they have and have not retraced very easily. 

Supplies
6X9 paper
tape
colored pencils
ink pens
6X9 Scratch Foam 

Day 3
This was our catch up day for kids that needed to finish their drawing, finish carving the stamp and move on to something fun before the real action of printmaking with real printmaking ink. I decided to let them make a marker print with whatever colors they wanted, since we would be printing in solid colors for our finale. Not everyone had the opportunity to do the marker print, if they were absent or something but everyone who did was pretty happy with the results and so was I! 

After I watched Cassie Stephen's marker print video, I knew I could do a quick demo for my students. So I drew a little 3X4 mini example under my document camera for each class to demonstrate the transfer process. I set myself up at the front with white paper and squirt bottle and let kids come to me for the sponge/spray sesh. I will say that a couple of kids messed up their foam plates because they pressed WAY too hard with the markers and it carved a texture into the foam. Next time, I will stress that they do not need to press hard with the markers, just gently cover the surface. 

The other thing students needed to do on day 3, was to shop for paper for printing. I had each student select 4 papers to print on and write their name in pencil in the corner. This way, everyone would have their name on their papers for printing day. I had a big table set up with all types of paper, old maps, colored copy paper, patterned scrapbook paper, construction paper, sheet music, whatever I could find that was easy to chop into 9X12 pieces. 

Supplies
foam plates
washable markers
spray bottle
sponge
9X12 white paper

Day 4
​PRINTING

I showed my students Cassie Stephen's printmaking video in order to demonstrate how to actually print. It was SO helpful and perfect for this project. I set up the black ink on each table (I passed it out after we watched the video) and I set up colored ink at stations around the room. I wanted some students to be able to move around and some working at the table so there wouldn't be a huge line waiting to print at any given time. 

This year, I went to goodwill and found a set of plastic trays to use as ink stations and they worked perfectly. We used up so much of my ink, that I am almost completely out and I even ordered an emergency 7 bottles from blick to make it through the last day. So if you are printing with nearly 400 students make sure you have plenty of ink, especially black. I told my students that the first print would probably not turn out the best so they should use the paper they are least attached to for their first edition.

NOTE: I had several color options for students to choose from. I did not have them wash their foam plates between colors, I kind of like how it looks when the colors mix.  

Supplies
printing ink
brayers
paper
foam stamps

For this project, I was looking for a way to infuse more art history into my curriculum and also a chance to use liquid watercolor.

I already had a parody of the Mona Lisa 'dabbing' above the regular poster of the real painting and my students were pretty much obsessed with it. 

When I found a few reference posts on pinterest, I decided to tackle a Mona Lisa parody project with my students. 

I printed off this head and hands template from Art Projects for Kids. 

Throughout the unit I shared facts from this list.

And since everyone loves a good whodunnit, I started the whole unit off with the mysterious story of the stolen Mona Lisa. Prior to the first class, I took down my Mona Lisa poster and left a small white sign that declared the missing/stolen Mona Lisa.

I did not hang up any pictures or images for inspiration, I started with a story of the missing painting. If you are looking for a good version, I read the one page story for the first  few classes, but after that, I basically had it memorized. Here is another one you could copy and have your students read. 
 
After learning how the painting was stolen and then recovered, I explained that it elevated the painting to THE most famous painting in the world. As a result, other artists started to make funny versions of the painting called parodies. I showed them a bunch of examples of parodies of the Mona Lisa. 

Parody--​an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

After explaining what a parody is, I realized that there are many instances that arise in cartoons or movies in which references are made to famous songs, works of art, etc.

​Many times, students don't have the background knowledge to 'get' the joke. So I decided to enlighten them with a little game called: Parody or Real Thing. Some students recognized these images immediately because they had seen them in a previous class or I had showed them last year.

Other images, they had never seen before, so I quickly gave them a mini art history lesson about the painting, artist or time period. It was a way to get the info in really quickly. I used a slide show for my initial introduction of the game, and then had them say out loud, what they thought---Parody or Real Thing. 

I showed them the Parody or Real Thing slide show after the initial introduction of the project. That same day, I introduced my Mona Lisa inspiration wall. I painted a big 6ft tall sloth in the Mona Lisa pose, with a Starry Night background---this gave students a lot of ideas on how they could incorporate other famous paintings as a background or they could reference other works of art in their parody to make it more interesting. 

Later, I made a kahoot quiz to make the game more interactive with all new images.

I LOVE Kahoot---I had a few issues the two days I tried to implement the quiz. First of all, the internet was almost non-functioning. I wasted several class periods just trying to get everyone logged onto devices.

Second of all, it is SUPER interactive, when the game was functioning, most kids were so amped up from the excitement, it was hard to get  a word in edgewise, which was why I was attempting to play this on our early-out day on Halloween. It perfectly aligned with our unit and the kids really enjoyed it. 

For the actual design, we used 12X18 watercolor paper. Students could choose to use the actual photo copy of her face and hands, or they could attempt to draw her on their own. They could use just the face, or just the hands, but if they decided to do another character, then it either had to be in the famous 'Mona Lisa' pose or it had to have the same background, or else it wouldn't be a parody, it would just be a painting of Batman.

I really liked it when they realized they could customize her hair or they could cut out scraps of paper to make a partial mask or sunglasses. I told them to use the white paper around the photo copy for 'props' or practice sketches.

We used a glue stick to glue the cut-outs down, and we drew everything in pencil and outlined in sharpie first. 

Supplies:
12X18 Watercolor paper
Pencil and eraser
sharpie
liquid watercolor
crayons
regular watercolor

Obviously the election and scary clowns were on everyone's mind in September. Also featured frequently, pokemon go, snapchat filters, and superheroes. 

Some were confused by the fact that the copy I gave them was completely bald--they had to at least add hair. And maybe arms and a shirt. I only gave them the head/neck and hands. Some added the hair perfectly. 

How clever is this boy to do a #nailedit meme as his Mona Lisa parody. I just love it! He wrote 'When I Created The Mona Lisa #nailedit' in the background. 

The liquid watercolor containers that were left in my classroom by a previous teacher worked out wonderfully for this project. They did not have brown or black so I opted for little plastic containers of brown and black, and I also provided regular watercolor sets for a jet black as the liquid watercolor was good for a dark sky, it wasn't good for Batman's suit---it just wasn't a dark dark black, it was sort of blueish. 

I encouraged my students to draw the background, outline everything in sharpie and erase old pencil lines. Also, I TRIED to stress that they should color SMALL details, like the yellow windows on this building with CRAYON before painting---to make it a wax resist. Some did not listen and had the headache of painting all the tiny windows and then trying to paint around them once the yellow dried. 

The first day of painting, I showed them a video I had made, where I demonstrate the wet-on-wet technique AND I explain how wax resist works. It was nice to have the demo recorded so I could show it to all 12 classes. 

Playing tetherball. I just love this one so much!!

Throughout the project, I had a drawing center set up for students to study statues that I have of the leaning tower of Pisa and the Eiffel tower. For this drawing station, I encourage them to blind contour as much as they can and use only felt tip drawing pens so they can't erase.  If they made something they were proud of, they could color it and glue it to a frame--names and class codes on the front---and I selected a bunch of them to hang up. Some made cute parodies of the Leaning Tower after I told them a little about it. 

Full disclosure. I've never actually taught anyone how to use perspective. I rarely use perspective. By teaching 300+ students how to use perspective, I've gotten a lot better at it myself and I can now figure out what they are getting or not getting and I've also learned how to show it one-on-one with some of them, when the whole group instruction wasn't making sense. I watched several youtube videos on how to do it, and it really helped me to simplify the instructions for my demonstration. 

For some reason, I decided this would be the year that I finally teach my students how to make things (besides spheres) how to appear 3-D. 

We started by drawing 3-D cubes in our sketchbooks. Some groups struggled with this----5th graders aren't ready in October. 6th graders did okay. 

Then, I had them get into pairs.....they loved working with a partner!

With their partner, they used the planning sheet to design a structure using perspective. They could use 1 point or 2 point perspective, and it could be spooky or not...since it was close to Halloween, I always like to do something with spooky architecture if I can. I have many visuals of Victorian houses, barns, pagodas, etc. for reference. Some of them are on this Smore flyer and I let my students access them digitally for this project. I also put 2 QR codes on the sheet, and let them watch the perspective videos we watched in class again, if they really struggled with the concept. (Flyer on Haunted houses and on Perspective)

After they had a plan, they drew the structure on bigger paper---brown, gray or white paper. They outlined with a sharpie and could color with either colored pencils or construction paper crayons. 

While they were working on drawing and coloring, I called them over to a special art station to make painted paper. It took 2 art times to get every over to the center---which is about what it took for them to finish drawing/coloring. 

At the special art station, students smeared shaving cream+acrylic paint onto paper with a pallete knife. One student in each group did a paper for them to use as their sky (had to pick between red+yellow OR blue+purple OR white, for a hazy smoky sky). The other person in the group created a textured paper using the same process, but their paper went into a community pile for everyone to use. The community pile had lots of shades of green, blue, purple, grey, brown, and tan. I did different variations for each class depending on what I thought we might need for the finished collages. 

All of the 'sky' pages were created on black construction paper. The combination of the acrylic and the shaving foam gave the paint a thickness that we don't normally find in school grade paint. The pallet knife technique was very fun for some of the students, I stood right by as they created the textured papers. The other colors were made on dark green, purple, grey and light green construction paper. I don't have a photo of the station with students using the plastic palette knives and shaving foam, but we scraped the excess off the knife and onto a cookie sheet, so that it could be reused over and over. I let the students spray the shaving cream and squirted the paint. It was sort of like an assembly line. 

Once all of the textured papers were created, it was time to put everything together. I encouraged students to think about the foreground, as well as the middle ground and the background for their collages.

​Small details could either be drawn with black crayons (sharpies would not work on the texture paper) onto the background, or they could be drawn/colored around the edges of their structures, since we were planning to cut those out and adhere them to the sky paper. 

I also had to stress to them, DON'T cut the the 'sky' paper that is the 'canvas' we will be gluing everything to! 

I was very proud of the variety of structures----there were tree houses, bird houses, stadiums, churches, schools, mansions, pagodas, and one group even re-created Alcatraz! 

The spooky texture on the house above was made with a slightly dried out marker---a cool idea from one of my students!! 

We did spend at least one day practicing trees, before the final day of the project--it really helped them to get the hang of creating realistic looking branches.