Styrofoam Statue of Liberty Prints

In my 3rd-6th grade 12:1:1 class, we started out the year by doing sytrofoam prints of the Statue of Liberty, based on the art of Keith Haring.  We spent approximately three class periods creating these.  Due to the nature of this class, it's difficult to do a project that aligns with what they are learning as they are all learning different things.  At the time we started this, the classroom teacher was simply doing a review of New York State until pre-assessments were completed, so I figured these prints would fit in nicely.

On the first day, we looked at my power point about Keith Haring and looked at his screen print of the Statue of Liberty.  Students then had to draw their own version of the Statue (after, of course, we talked about how big she is, what her crown stands for, and other characteristics of the statue).

On the second day, I approved their drawings and let them draw their designs onto a piece of styrofoam with a wooden stick.  We used styrofam that was donated to the classroom (it came in the form of cleaned and sanitized meat trays!).  Students then experimented with making prints.

On the last day, we had mini critiques at each table.  Every student received a chance to lay out all of his or her prints for discussion.  Students talked about color choice and how clear the print turned out.  Once they had their best print picked out, we matted them using pre-cut mats.

I had the students draw a border around their print before cutting to ensure there would be enough paper to tape to the mat (some prints were a bit smaller than the frame opening).  I showed them how to tape it from the back, and then we signed our prints using the artist's name, a title, the edition number and the date.

The students were really proud of these, and considering the multiple ranges of abilities, I'm pretty happy with them as well!

Sorry about the bad coloring on these...they looked fine on my camera when I photographed them, but when I uploaded them, the computer really changed the colors!

The following is the rubric that was used to grade these projects:

2nd Grade Printmaking Unit: Symmetrical City Scapes

For the second project in our printmaking unit, students created these symmetrical city scapes using the intaglio process.  On the first day, we reviewed the warm and cool colors.  We folded our paper in half and drew a border around the edge (sans Phyl at There's a Dragon in My Art Room!).  The top half was painted with warm colors to represent the sunset and the bottom half was painted with cool colors to represent the water.  The great thing I found that I like about having the kids add the border is that it makes their artwork easier to crop on Artsonia!  Some students didn't do that great of a job drawing an even border all the way around, but that's okay, it still made it a little easier to get a nicer crop done.

On the second day, I introduced students to the intaglio process.  I showed them how to lightly draw into a piece of Styrofoam (which were pieces of to-go boxes I bought from a local restaurant) to create the city.  I made sure to show students how their buildings needed to be touching.  After I gave students the go-ahead, they cut out their city and then made their print.

I had my students use black block printing ink for this.  They squirted the ink onto a bench hook and then used a brayer to roll it out and onto their Styrofoam.  Now, here's where I changed this project up a bit from what I found on Pinterest.  The pin I found brought me to the Laugh, Paint, Create blog where this project was done as well.  The teacher there had the students make two prints from their city, one for the city and one for the reflection.  My OCD hit me at this point because I didn't like how the reflection isn't actually a reflection on their projects!

So, I had the students place their inked plate onto the water and press down.  Before they pulled it up, I had them put glue on the back of the plate.  Then, they were allowed to pull the plate up and glue it onto the warm colored side.