Thursday, February 21, 2019

Welcome James!
James started Kids' Workshop today! There were so many Tucker Room friends to work and play with him.  After getting started outside and table setting, James thoroughly enjoyed our experiences with paint and printing.  He and his friends started with paint scraping.  From there he added the leftover paint to the easel.  

Another experience that was available in the studio was printing directly into art books.  Tommy made this discovery Tuesday, and was happy to show others how to incorporate the technique into their books.  The process is similar to an ink blot.... you add the paint to one page and press  the book closed, resulting in a mirror image on the adjacent page.  Tommy had previously printed each page of his book, so he did the demo in Jessica's book.  While many children worked in their own books,  a few friends added their contributions to Jessica's as well.  Lily was impressed by Tommy's work, and copied his design in her own book.

Monoprints and Beyond

Before the snow on Tuesday, several children worked on monoprints.  They applied printers ink to glass and printed from the glass on to paper.  Today several children worked with mono printing again.  We also added a related experience known as dendritic monoprints.  The word "dendritic" refers to the plant-like or tree-like pattern that is (sometimes) created through this process.  Children place dots of paint on a piece of glass. A second piece of glass is then pressed on top of the paint.  After separating the two pieces of glass, place paper on each to create a print.  This produces a mirror image, much like the ink-blot experience mentioned above.  We all enjoyed experimenting with this new way to print!

Everything Else....

Along with printing and painting, children found other opportunities to engage with each other.  Being outside led to making "snowy stew" and collecting melted snow for water.  Hugh and James had a chance to build in the middle room.  Lily was inspired by classroom experiences to make a new art book at the sewing machine.  Of course, Lou Lou made messages.  Today she and Grace joyfully exchanged messages, and remembered to send some to Louise who went out of town today.