GIVEAWAY! I have six sets Reeves Wax Pastels to give away, courtesy of the nice people at ColArt. If you are going to NAEA ’14 in San Diego, please be sure to stop by booth 537 and check out all of their wonderful art supplies.
Isn’t it wonderful when you have time to make your own art? I experimented with mono printing this week as part of my homework for the Artsy Book Club. I used Shrinky Dink shrinkable plastic for my printing plate. It worked beautifully as a plate, plus I got to shrink it in the oven after I was done!
You’ll need wax pastels, frosted Shrinky Dinks, watercolor paper, and an oven.
Directions:
Make a sketch on copy paper
Place the shrinkable plastic (AKA the printing plate) on top of the sketch
Trace sketch with wax pastel, then color background/negative space
Brush plastic with wet paintbrush to blend colors
Dampen paper in dish pan of water, blot in towel
Place dampened watercolor paper on plastic
Rub
Pull the print
Add more wax pastel (in select areas) to the wet print.
You can re-use the full size shrinkable plastic plate over and over; just re-color for every new mono print.
1. Monoprint onto watercolor paper. 2. Rework wet print with wax pastels 3. Rework plastic plate and shrink in oven.
Shrink the printing plate
Ready for even more fun? When you are done printing, re-color the Shrinky Dink printing plate and shrunk it in the oven.
Yes, that’s right: I shrunk my printing plate in the oven. It’s beautiful! The colors are concentrated and rich. Just follow the directions on the Shrinky Dink package.
This mono print was made with watercolor pencils onto a scrap of dampened mat board. Time to shrink the printing plate!
Monoprinting with watercolor pencils
I used Reeves Watercolor Pencils to trace an impressionist painting onto my frosted Shrinky Dink plate. Then I printed onto a scrap of dampened mat board.
The printing plate started as a 1/4 sheet (4″x5″) of Shrinky Dink plastic. After printing, the plate shrunk to 1.5″x2″ Student work.
Try a mini monoprint with the kids
I used a full 8″x10″ sheet of Shrinky Dink plastic for my architectural mono prints, and I had to shrink each plate individually. This is not practical at school. Instead, try a 1/4 sheet of shrinkable plastic for the printing plate. I can shrink about 7 at a time on a full size cookie sheet. This is also a great way to use up scraps of watercolor paper.
Relax and enjoy the process…
These mono prints are somewhat experimental. You never know exactly what you’ll get. Try not to get caught up in perfectionism. If a print is less than perfect, rework it.
Thanks to Col Art for the samples of Reeves Watercolor Pencils and Reeves Wax Pastels. Thanks to awesome art teacher/blogger Cassie Stevens for creating our Artsy Book Club!
Enjoy!
What is the weirdest printing project you’ve ever tried?
Isn’t it exciting to try out a new art supply? I received a big pack of Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels in a gift bag from Col Art. Today I tested them out with a group of second graders.
I really wanted to try printing with the wax pastels. Here are some of our experiments:
E. drew wax pastel fireworks on aluminum foil. She placed a dampened piece of copy paper on the foil and rubbed. She was very pleased with her wax pastel mono print!
Wax pastel on unglazed tile
I was curious to see how the wax pastels worked on different surfaces. Next we drew on unglazed white tile.
Wax pastel on unglazed tile
The pastels glided on the unglazed tile. They didn’t smear like oil pastels. But could we print with them?
Wax pastel print
I had some thin white paper on a roll that I use for gyotaku prints. We dampened the paper with a sponge, placed it on the tile and rubbed. The wax pastels printed nicely.
wax pastel print
I tried printing with heavier sulfite drawing paper as well.
I noticed that students used up more pastels when drawing on tile than when drawing on foil. I will try printing with different papers before teaching the lesson to an entire grade.
Overall, the wax pastel printing experiments were successful. There was no clean up – the students didn’t even need to wash their hands after printing. The students went home happy with a tile and prints. So much fun!
I couldn’t attend the 2013 NAEA Conference in Texas. However, the wonderful folks at ColArt sent me this FABULOUS goodie bag of their art supplies in honor of K-6 Art selection as a top 10 Art Ed blog for 2012.
The goodie bag contained lots of paints, brushes, markers, pencils, mini canvases and even face paint from brands including Reeves, Liquitex, Windsor and Newton, Conte, Letraset and Snazaroo.
What to try first? I cannot wait to try out my Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels. (Compensated affiliate link).
Textured tooling foil colored with wax pastel. Source
I have a name art foil relief project on the blog that might look very nice in wax pastel! I will definitely report back on my experiments with all my fabulous new supplies.
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