Printmaking!!! (Upper School Arts)

I never thought I would be teaching Art when we first headed to ABC, but once her we learned that they didn't have anyone to do it.I have had quite a bit of fun with my 7th and 8th graders this year. I didn't realize how much I enjoy doing art and bringing my pupils along in their love for art.

We have done quite a bit of drawing, watercolor, and even scrap sculpture. Now we have moved onto my favorite medium: printmaking. In the first world we would use linoleum with proper carving/gauging tools and proper printmaking ink. But in our case, we used the double thick cardboard pieces I have been collecting for the last year and house paint. It has been good to use materials that are common around us. It communicates to the kids a few things, a) Malawi is good enough to make good art, we don't need to import proper materials to be accepted but rather using what is around us produces unique and excellent work, and b) creativity is not bound by materials, but employs them in its own purpose. This has been a real everyday issue for us, and especially for my friend Bech who teaches art to the rest of the school. It has been good for all involved.

My students became really excited about printmaking once they were able to see their final prints. It can be quite a long process: creating a design, transferring it to a block, cutting out the block, varnishing the block, and then finally printing. Yet, when I asked my kids what has been their favorite medium this year, almost all of them said, "printmaking!!"
I was taken back, but very encouraged since I love it so much. I am glad to have transferred to them an interest in the whole process and not just a desire for techniques (how do I draw this? can you make mine look good? what should I draw?)

Anyway, here are some pictures from our second round of printing. Previously, I prepared the ink (black paint), inked their blocks, and help them print. This second time around, I stepped back and just overlooked the process as they took it on themselves. It was really rewarding for everyone.

This is Chloe pulling off her first print very slowly. Segyo, just to the right, and Chloe were very careful and methodical in their work which rewarded them both greatly

Overall I have been very impressed with the creativity of designs, and in the execution of the printing that my students have produced.



As well, I have been working on my own woodcut, which I have finally started printing. I am trying to print enough of these to not feel compelled to bring the block home (wood is much heavier than cardboard).

The design is a Cattle Egret standing in grass in a tryptych type lancet arch. The Egret comes to Malawi around December and so is a herald of two things: Christmas and Rain. Both are good news to tired and dry bones.

Here comes the sad part:
As you can see, its a fairly messy work. Lots of chemicals, stinky paint, and stains everywhere. (Maybe that's why I love it, it reminds me a bit of the graffiti world I still love.) So clean up is a pain. In an effort to be quick I plopped my four brayers in tupperware full of turpentine, hoping to let them soak overnight, and be ready for a quick wash in the morning. Well, Friday morning I arrived in my classroam to four clean and ruined brayers. The soft rubber layer had swollen up and now sits around the plastic axle like a loose leg warmer. Killer. Stupid. Argh.
So, now I will have to figure out a clever substitute to my lovely brayers. Any ideas?

I will posting some more pictures of the rest of my students work. The pictures above are just a fraction of the great work they have done. I can't help but be proud of them.

Krisimisi Ya Bwino (Merry Christmas) at ABCCA

Thursday night the Academy put on a Christmas program. It was complete with arrhythmic elementary music and singing, as well as lots of other enjoyable skits and songs from our lovely student body. Of course, sometimes you are laughing at the kids, and not so much laughing with them, but most of the time it was a lot of fun to see them do their thing.

The main art teacher for the school, one of my best friends in Malawi, Bech Evans came to me last week with the idea of making prints for every family for the Christmas program. Last year they gave out cookies at the end of the program, but this year they weren't going to. So they wanted to give a gift to each family, and hand printed cards turned out to be the perfect thing. So I set out and made three different blocks from cardboard I have hoarded for a linocut style print (relief printmaking). After piles of just plain cheezy Christmas themed designs, I finally blazed a new path and made a couple designs centered on the gift of food, specifically a stove. This year ABCCA collected money to give a new stove and oven to a local orphanage that the students have been involved in. So I thought it would be awesome to commemorate our gift to them as the heart of our Christmas program.

On Tuesday, after a long day of school, Bech and I met up in my classroom, and started printing at 4pm and ended at 10pm. Only finishing half of the 250 required of us, we continued the next day for about 6 hours. We finished with about 270 overall. We made extra in case of poor prints (which there were some), and so we could glean some.

A lot of people didn't get what this was; a bowl of hot food being handed to empty hands.

We had to keep adding more and more strings to my classroom to hang our prints to dry. It ended up looking pretty cool, even though it became sort of a hovel.



This was my favorite print by far. We ended up having half a block fall apart, so we salvaged this half and used it for the last 50 prints or so. This burnt Orange really turned out great. We just used normal oil house paint, and mixed it ourselves. It was a lot of fun, though it was extremely tiring. (Neither of us had printed that quantity before.)

In the pictures below, you can also see the recycled robots we made for International Day. The administration was selling the kids artwork to the parents for a fundraiser. So I had our whole class produce something, instead of individual works and put a higher price tag on it. None of the parents of the upper school kids wanted to pay money to have a 'hunk of junk' in their house; I didn't think they'd get it. Oh well. The kids got really excited about using things that others throw away for the parts of a robot. They turned out really great. I was really proud of my kids.


Here is a picture of the print I made for Beth and my third anniversary. I have really been enjoying printmaking lately. (And no, the two little birds doesn't mean we are having more kids right now, Eli is more than enough.)