To finish up our exploration of the figure and figure representation, the Sunflower and Fern groups learned how to make styrofoam prints! We began by passing around large sheets of styrofoam and tried to figure out what they were, what they could be used for, and what they felt like.
Nneka: Feels floppy and hard.
Trebor: Softly!
Zoe: Why is it so fragile?
Nayeli: I like how it feels.
Sarah: It feels like a plate. It’s flat.
Mae: I really thought it was real paper, but it’s not. It’s foam. It’s squishy.
William: It feels like it could pop.
Next, I invited a friend to come to the stage and strike a pose. With the back of a paintbrush, I modeled how to represent the pose onto styrofoam, just as friends have been doing for weeks with figure drawing on paper and on the Gelli plates. Since the styrofoam was large, we were able to combine all poses from each art group into one image.
Trebor: We’re going on the stage, oh yeah!
Zavier: I want to make one hundred million little people on here.
Adrian: Zoe did such a good job. It looks just like me!
Luke: I see movements on the styrofoam.
Iris: How do you draw in it? What do you use? Your nails?
Elijah: You know this is just how I stand so I could pose like this for an hour.
Miguel: I see Briana has a little tiny button, even smaller than my button.
Destynee: I see it now! The sun is on so I can see the people on the styrofoam.
Florentina: It feels really like a fabric sponge. We capture the movement on it.
This week, children created their edition of prints! Friends picked a color of block print ink, rolled it out on plexiglass into a smooth layer, rolled it onto their styrofoam and printed it on large paper. This is the first time we have ever done such large prints in the Studio, and they came out better than I even could have imagined! Post Spring Break, this work will be on display in the PK hallway 🙂
Andres: Why wont it go into the white part? Is it because we pushed down to draw?
Trebor: It’s on the paper. Wow!
Nneka: Push down hard to get it on the paper. I’m so strong.
Maia: Sticky. Ink is sticky.
Siena: I like how it sounds.
Rayyan: Rolling the ink sounds crunchy like a cookie or wood chips.
Destynee: The ink doesn’t cover the hair. Why?
Sophie: It looks like bones because the people are white lines.
Elijah: The blue ink looks like my toothpaste.
Cameron: The paper is blue but the people are white.
Abigail: Don’t forget to roll on all the sides.
Zavier: I made all the creative stuff because I’m a creative kid.
Mae: I was right! It printed on the paper!