Printing The Elements

Today we explored block printing methods in our Weaving Wilderness group.

We had a simple starting place for this project: choose one of four classic elements (earth, wind, fire, water) and a corresponding ink color, then trace patterns on our foam stamp blocks to print with. One salamander friend explains, “We made a lot of designs and stuff… I made fire, hearts, leaves, squiggly lines, spirals.”

As our pages began to fill up we got experimental! We introduced small amounts of other colors to create new shades of red, green, yellow, and blue; we cut and glued foam pieces together to create a new kind of stamp, and incorporated dried leaves, and charcoal borders.

This is a great open ended way to explore using foraged and natural elements in the creative process. Our charcoal came from a foraging walk to the bird sanctuary, and our leaves from our walks from school to the studio.

Here’s a detail shot of one of the prints, along with a note from the artist:

“This is like fire because hearts are red so they are like fire. Fire makes you warm… Orange is a part of fire too, so I made some orange and I made some pencil lines.