Hi Library friends! Miss Becky here and today I'm going to show you how to make some prints
using styrofoam.
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Printmaking is an art form where you use a matrix to transfer an image onto a piece of
paper. The matrix can be wood, glass, metal or a different type of material that has an image
carved, etched, or chemically transposed onto it. A matrix is kind of like a large stamp and the
magic of printmaking is that it allows the artist to make multiples of the same type of work. If you
want to learn more about the different types of printmaking you can look at the link in
the video description which is from The Met. For our project today we'll be using styrofoam plates
and we're going to be doing a relief process. So we'll be carving into the plates
using a pencil and then we'll make prints. Let's get started.
For this project we'll need styrofoam-- you can either buy styrofoam printing plates which are what I have here or you can use
leftover styrofoam from takeout food containers. We'll also need a foam brayer, acrylic paint,
a sharp pencil, a dull pencil, multiple sheets of paper, paper towels, paper plates, and scissors.
Since we'll be using a brayer to cover our plates in paint, each plate needs to be--
each plate will end up being a uniform color. So if we want multiple colors and our final product
like how I have here, we'll actually need to use multiple plates to achieve that goal.
So I'm going to show you how to design a print using two colors and therefore two plates:
one for the background and one for a central image. So when creating your design you'll
choose something to be the main figure in your design, such as an animal, a person, a plant,
or an object. It could be anything, like a slice of pizza, a flower, or in the case of my example,
a bird and then you can see that to achieve that I ended up using two different plates.
Okay, so once you've decided on your central image you can look online to find a reference photo
If you'd like and then you can draw your design on a piece of paper. So when I did my bird this
was the design that I originally made and we'll use that design to transfer the image onto our
styrofoam. So when you're drawing it you don't want to use like a thick piece of sketchbook paper
you just want a nice thin piece of printer paper. That'll make it easier to transfer the image onto
your plate. Before you start drawing you'll want to trace the size of your plate onto your paper
so you can make sure that you're accurately getting the dimensions that you'll work with.
So this was my first sample and then today I made a new sample. This is a snake plant so
we'll see how this one turns out. A few things to keep in mind when you're creating your design:
the prints that you create from these designs will end up being a mirror image
so if you're going to use any words or symbols you want to write them backwards
so that way they end up reading correctly on your final piece. So here I wrote "Sansevieria"
which is the name for a snake plant and I wrote it backwards. Our prints are relief works so any
lines that we end up carving into our piece will not pick up paint on the final piece. You can
see here I carved in these leaves and they ended up being white and areas that remain untouched
like this main part of the background that ends up being a big block of color. So when I did my bird
these areas here that are lighter white I had to carve those lines in to get that light white.
It's kind of the opposite of what you would do if you were normally drawing
where if you draw on a bunch of lines that area ends up looking darker.
So in this case it's kind of working in the opposite way of how you normally draw.
And then since we're carving our into our design, details will be best shown
via line work. So if you want to show shadow or light, anything like that, you'll want to use
probably cross-hatching or hatching to show that texture. So here you can see I added some
cross-hatching in the background to make some light around the bird and then these feathers--
that's hatching, so they're just kind of single lines.
So now that we have our design made we're going to transfer it onto the plate. So to do this,
cut out your design so it's the same size as your plate then set it on top of the styrofoam.
Then we're going to trace it using a dull pencil. So here you can see my pencil is very dull--
we want a dull pencil because it's easier to maneuver it over the styrofoam.
So what we're going to do is trace over our design and when we push in that will make indentations in
the styrofoam which is kind of how we carve into the styrofoam. So this first plate is just going
to be the background. So I'm going to do one color for my background and one color for my plant.
So I'm still gonna trace outside around my plant but I don't need to trace in
these details on this plate. I'm gonna do a second plate for that. So let's get started.
As I'm going I can feel that my pencil is pushing into the styrofoam which is what I want.
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Okay, so then when we remove my drawing you can kind of...
it catches? Okay. You can see that it is carved into the plate. What I'm going to do now is
go into this plant and I'm going to push down all of the styrofoam that's inside here because I want
to try and have this pick up at the smallest amount of paint as possible because we want
this to kind of end up being blank on this plate because we're going to do it with our other color.
So just get in and try and push down all of that with your dull pencil, kind of just coloring it in
it will still pick up some ink because it's hard to get it perfectly pushed down...
but you'll do your best and then you can also go through your other lines
and if anything looks like it's not pushed down enough, push it down more and add any
extra details that you might want to.
Okay, so now we're going to do our second plate. So again we'll take our design and put it on top
but this time we are just tracing our central image
so I'm just going to trace my plant and I will do all of the detail inside of it this time.
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Okay, so then you can take your design off and you can see how it looks. If there's anything that
you think needs to be done more you can carve it in extra and if not what we're going to do
now is cut this out with scissors so that way when we go to make our print this one will
be able to just fit right in the blank spot that we left for it and we won't end up with
any extra paint or anything that goes over on the background that we have here.
So our plates are ready and it's time to start printing. So I've set up our printing station.
I have a paper plate with my first color on it. This is
what I'm going to roll the color onto the brayer using this paper plate.
Then I have a scratch piece of paper underneath my printing plate so that way when I roll onto it
it gets any like extra gets on the scratch piece of paper and not on the table and then I have my
paper that I'm going to print onto. I'm just using cardstock today, you could use any type of paper.
I would suggest a thicker paper but it could be cardstock or like watercolor paper or paper you
would paint on or they do make paper specifically for printmaking.
Okay, so the color I'm going to
use for my background is a light pink. You'll want your background colors to be lighter than
the color that you use for your central image because you will get some marks there where
you cut into so you want it to be lighter so that way when you put your second plate on it
the darker color kind of will cover that up and it'll still be really vibrant and visible there.
All right, so let's start here with the pink. So you just roll your brayer into it.
You want to get it nice and covered and paint. Since the brayer has a sponge on it you will need
a lot of paint because it kind of soaks some of it up. Let's see if this is good or if I need more paint.
That looks pretty good, so just roll it all over your plate.
Get it nice and covered and saturated.
Okay, then we're going to take it and I'm just gonna, I'll use just half the piece of
paper for this one, set it down there, then I'm going to take a scratch piece of paper,
put it over the top and then I'm going to use my knuckles to burnish it is what this
is called and to the other piece of paper. So I'm just pressing really hard with my knuckles,
kind of working in a circular motion to make sure all the different parts of the plate get
pressed against the paper so the paint transfers from the plate to the paper.
Okay, let's see how that turned out.
That's pretty good for a first one. I find that a lot of the time the first one ends
up being a little bit lighter than your next ones will be. So here we have some white space
but I don't really mind it. The nice thing about printmaking is
that little accidents like that can end up looking really cool and unique.
All right, so before we go to the next step make sure to
clean off your brayer. You can just do this in the sink. Put it under water and you can
kind of squeeze the sponge to get the other paint out then dry it off with a paper towel.
Now we'll put down our paint for our next piece and I'm actually going to use kind
of multiple paint colors here to create kind of like an ombre effect. We'll see how it turns out.
So you just put the different colors that you want down and
then we're just going to roll over the whole thing
and once my brayer is nice and saturated come over here and put it on my plate.
Then I'm going to take the plate and very carefully line it up
here, get as close to being right on the mark as you can...
and then get a piece of scratch paper again, set it over the top and burnish your plate.
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Just want to make sure I get all of these little details.
Okay, the moment of truth...
That turned out pretty nice. Yay! [laughs]
Then you can play with the different colors, so you could do something that has multiple tones in
the background and a single tone for your central figure or different tones for your central figure.
You just need to wash off the styrofoam and then you can switch up the colors.
And voila! Our prints are complete. You can go ahead and cut them and trim them down
to size around the outside and I think it's important to keep in mind that
when you're printmaking, like I said before, sometimes things can get a little messed up
but some of those mistakes or choosing to do things multiple time on the same piece of paper
can end up looking kind of cool and intentional.
So keep your happy accidents as well because you might end up thinking that they're pretty cool.
Thanks for creating prints with me today. This technique is a fun art project and it can also
be used for creating cards and gifts. Make sure to like and subscribe to our channel and I'll
see you next time.
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