hi this is molly and welcome to art around the world today we're going to be traveling to west
africa to a country called ghana and we're going to be doing some printmaking let's go
in ghana the tradition of printmaking is very special to the ashanti people a dinker cloth
is created by hand through the process of print making initially these claws were worn only by
royalty during certain ceremonies but over time many people have also created them to express
their thoughts feelings or to tell a story these claws are made by stamping fabric with traditional
adinkra symbols each symbol has its own meaning first people decorate the cloth using black dye
made from bark which is called adinkra aduru the name of the dye is where the cloth gets its name
first they mark the cloth into squares then they carve symbols into calabash gourds
then these gourds are pressed into dire ink finally they are pressed onto the fabric
today we are going to create our own west african print but we aren't going to be carving into
calabash gourds instead you will need a styrofoam plate a dull pencil black and red temper paint
a paintbrush black or brown cardstock and a few pieces of plain sketch paper
with all these you will create prints like these let's go
hi now that you've gathered the materials let's get started
and we're going to make this today so we're going to have an elephant print in the middle
and then there's pattern prints strips on the outside okay let's get going so first
i'm going to have you find a sketch piece of paper it could be a computer sheet of paper whatever you
have and we're going to do some just practicing making patterns and we're going to go across our
paper i've turned my paper horizontally so we are going to just make whatever symbols come to mind
they could mean something like the adinkra symbols or they could just be creative
and as you remember a pattern is a series of lines or designs that repeats over and over again so
that's what we're doing we're going to repeat over and over again so i'm just doing some teardrops
you don't have to do this pattern be creative doesn't have to look like mine and i'll just
it doesn't have to be perfect
okay so those are three of mine okay now that you have completed practicing some patterns we're
actually going to take a strip of styrofoam that i cut out of this oval styrofoam plate
and we're going to be making a pattern into it now you'll see why later and like the ashanti
people carved into calabash gourds we are carving into styrofoam today so choose a pattern from your
sheet your practice sheet one that you like and you can do it here you can adjust it or make it
different but just something easy so maybe you liked the triangles so i'm just going to carve
straight into my styrofoam you can see it's leaving a line okay now after you've done that
once with a dull pencil it's not too sharp so it's not going to go through i want you to go
over the design one more time to get those grooves really deep okay so see how i'm going over those
grooves again i'm not going through it but i'm making them deep into the styrofoam now i already
completed one earlier so this is the one that we will be using later on when we make our print
now our next step we're actually going to cut again and cut out a rectangle
and i cut it out from another styrofoam plate so we're going to need a total of two
styrofoam plates so if you have those handy cut that out take some time to cut that out
and once you've got it cut out we're going to trace it now the reason we're going to trace it is
because we have to make our elephant fit into this rectangle or else he'll be too big or too small
for our print so i'm going to trace around that
okay so now we're going to show you a simple way to draw an elephant
so first as you guys know let's elephants kind of have that curved hump and it goes down just
slightly not as much like a horse so just like a slight little hill if you could do that on that
side of the paper okay and i don't know if you knew this but african elephants actually have an
ear and it doesn't have to be perfect because i i'm definitely not perfect at drawing africa but
similar to the shape of africa so i drew that big ear for that elephant you can go
ahead and do that too and they have larger ears than indian elephants okay now we're going to
come down here and draw his forehead so another curve you want to draw that curve right there
and then right at this spot we're going to bring his trunk down so just some curvy lines
maybe down to about there so i have about an inch left from here to here maybe an inch and a half
and we're going to just if you want to make his trunk look like it's open
his nostril let's draw a little almond shape down at the bottom of that trunk
okay i'll give you a second if you need to catch up or you can also pause the video at any point
now i'm going to take that line back up and just bring it into the ear because our ear was so big
now for his mouth i'm just going to draw a tiny little triangle right there
so his mouth is kind of hidden behind his ear
okay now coming down from about this part of africa this side we're gonna draw his big
legs so they kind of have a little bit of a curve down here
but just they come back in a little bit and then go out so that's his front leg and we're going
to take that back up here not all the way up so stop right there and give him a little arm muscle
okay again if you need to pause the video feel free now coming down from this curve
it's okay we have a little line off the back i'll show you what that's for
we're going to come in and come down again want to make sure we're kind of even with
this foot because this is his back foot okay we're going to curve that line up you know what
i didn't like the way i carved it but that's why we have erasers i'm going to curve that in
okay and then we're going to bring this leg up okay look at that negative space right here
it's actually about to look like two curtains and this being a window so if you can
get to there and make something that looks like two curtains and a big window in the middle
and then we need to draw his belly so i'm gonna just draw another curved line
okay now we need to draw his tail so maybe you have a little part sticking down
but we're going to just draw this little tail coming off the back here
then from his belly i'm going to go down a little bit do that then we also need to draw a front leg
that looks like it's from the back so there you go almost looks like two curtains doesn't
it if you look at that negative space in the middle but that's his front leg
and then he needs an eye doesn't he
so if you want to draw an eye on your elephant
sometimes i leave a little white spot
okay now i'm kind of looking at this curve if you want to change anything now is the time i kind
of want that curve to look a little different so i'm going to just change it a little bit so it's
a little more even if there's anything you want to change go ahead and take the time to change it
but you just drew an elephant give yourself a pat on the back okay now that we have that
step we're going to move on to the next step so we're going to take that same
styrofoam i'm going to use the shiny side i'm going to line up my elephant on this styrofoam
make sure that every part of my elephant is on that so i can press down and find it just making
sure my elephant will be on it that every part of him his feet will be on it his back his face
and when i have that i'm going to use some tape just tape down the corners so that it doesn't move
doesn't have to be perfect but it will help me hold it down a little better okay
now we're going to use this elephant that you drew as our tracing paper and we're going to
use him to help us carve into our styrofoam so your drawing you might go through it
but your elephant will come out pressed in to
oh my pencil broke here
oh
okay now that you have finished kind of engraving and tracing over your elephant
we're gonna gently peel off that tape
and you're gonna see what's beneath so now i'm gonna lift it off and there's my elephant now
what i want you guys to do is actually go over it again with your doll pencil
you don't have to go through your styrofoam you don't really want to
and go over that elephant one more time okay so there's my elephant and i think those lines
are pretty deep if i see any that don't look too deep maybe i'll go back over those a little bit
okay so you want to make sure your lines are deep that's important so now we're moving on right
now i'm gonna take red and black tempera paint okay and i have a little paint tray right here
and we're gonna put some tempera paint down in my little paint tray as you can see
and you know i think i actually want this elephant on a white piece of paper i have some
so i got that white piece of paper ready get that little crumb off there
and i think just like our print i'm going to use black so i'm going to take this pretty big paint
i'm just going to go straight over my print
okay so i think i've covered the whole thing now i'm going to put that paintbrush to the side move
this over i'm going to put a just a paper to absorb if there's any black i'm going to put
some paper right there now here's my sketch paper i'm going to try not to put my fingerprints on
this i'm taking this print on my answer okay i'm gonna flip this elephant over and i'm just gonna
hold with one hand very firmly you might need a parent to help you and that's okay
i'm just going to press it down some of you might even have like in your kitchen like a cookie
dough roller a dough roller i have this handy thing called a brayer that you can order those
online so i'm going to just use the brayer today just to make sure but if you don't have that it's
okay a mom or dad could probably help you i'm just going to roll over my elephant and then i'm going
to pull it up and there it is do you see those lines pretty cool huh okay so there's my elephant
now i want to do some red strips let's see i'm going to move my nice print out of the
way because i don't want it and i'll put this down on this white piece of paper so you can see
um this has a little black in my brush but that's okay if you want to get a new brush no problem
i think the red is gonna take out a lot of that black that water just didn't quite get it out
much as i thought it would and then i'm gonna move this so it doesn't get on my print
okay so i've painted this red now i'm gonna flip it over at the top take my brayer go across
you guys can smooth it out with your hands rub it okay and then i'm gonna lift it off
okay can you guys see that pattern now i'm going to do the same thing get this
brush here get some red on it and i'm going to go over that pattern strip again with my red paint
and i'm going to put this down at the bottom
of my print lift that off now we've got the sides to do here we go with more red paint
if you want to make your elephant stand out a little more you can mat it or glue it down to
a piece of black card stock and it'll make it pop really well so i hope you enjoyed this demo
and learning how to make your own west african inspired print thanks for joining us