School of the Arts Lesson 4
Personality Postcard
age: 7th - 10th grade
instructors: Madigan Young, Cari Ann Rasmussen, SunHee Oberfoell, & Tyler Bubser
date: 3/24/22
Iowa Learning Standards:
VA:Cr2.1.8a Demonstrate willingness to experiment, innovate, and take risks to pursue ideas, forms, and meanings that emerge in the process of artmaking or designing.
VA:Cr2.3.7a Apply visual organizational strategies to design and produce a work of art, design, or media that clearly communicates information or ideas
VA:Cr3.1.7a Reflect on and explain important information about personal artwork in an artist statement or another format.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the lesson TLW identify and describe at least one of the contemporary artists that were shown during the introductory PowerPoint for this project.
By the end of the lesson TLW express an idea or statement through visual representations/symbols.
By the end of the lesson TLW demonstrate ability to use linoleum cutter and ink roller.
By the end of the lesson TLW apply two personal symbols to the composition of their personality postcard.
Summary
Tyler opened the lesson by introducing what students would be creating, “personality portraits,” using printing materials. Then she showed examples for style and subject from Daniel Arzola and Kehinde Wiley, and examples of the print medium from Elizabeth Catlett.
The warmup activity included a discussion of symbols. Tyler showed a peace sign and a heart and asked students what these symbols represented. Then she showed white and red roses to prompt discussion about how colors can symbolize different things, in addition to images.
Tyler asked students to generate a list of words and phrases that relate to their identity. Once they had a list, she had them draw symbols that represented a few of the words.
Tyler ended the discussion/presentation to move to a partial demonstration of printmaking. Cari Ann asked everyone to move over to the demonstration table so they could see the examples. She showed students the materials (including the rubber block, brayer, ink) and several examples of prints made in the same way as the students would be creating their own prints. She explained that they would draw out their design and transfer it directly to the block by placing the drawing facedown, and rubbing the paper to transfer the graphite onto the block. She told students from there they could carve out their design. She reminded them that where they carved out would be the white space. Tyler’s examples were nice because she showed students the final print next to the block that she carved out so they could see the way negative versus positive space turned out. I asked students who had experience with print making- one student was currently taking a printmaking class while most of the group was new to the process. This was helpful to know who might need more or less support in the technical aspects of the process.
Students began working on their final sketches for the print. They led the way in asking to trace the rubber blocks so they would know how large to make their drawings. I’m not sure if their final designs were based on symbols they created from their word lists but I would be interested to look back at the planning process. We moved quickly from silent brainstorm time to demonstration so instructors didn’t really check in with students during the brainstorm time until we got to the final planning stage.
Once students completed their sketch they wanted to print, they showed an instructor and we provided the block. Instructors introduced students to the carving process one by one and showed them the tools. I worked closely with one student and showed her the tools, let her know the options for carving tools, demonstrated carving a few lines and let her try on a practice block. Then, I continually checked in as she worked and asked questions about how she felt about it, made specific complementary comments on her work and answered any questions she had. Meanwhile, Tyler also showed students, individually, how to carve prints and SunHee and Cari Ann also walked around and checked in with students. Once students finished their carvings, which took a lot less time than I thought, probably due to the 4x6” size, they showed an instructor again. Tyler set up a table that turned into the printing table where students applied ink and pulled their prints. She demonstrated how to apply the ink and pull the print again to each student individually.
Students mixed their own ink colors and pulled 3-4 prints each. All instructors cleaned the brayers and set them out to dry. Students signed their prints and put them on the shelves to dry.
Final Outcomes
Students ended up with a few postcard sized prints, possibly with a personal symbolic meaning behind the image. Students experimented with applying different colors to different parts of the printing block, and mixing new colors. Students also pulled an initial print and tweaked their carving based on the results, then pulled new prints.
