printmaking Archives | Page 2 of 2

Sweet Potato Heart Prints

By Rachelle

“A life without love is like a year without summer.” – Swedish proverb

Now that our light-up snowman and twinkly lights have finally come down (yes, we’re those people!), we’ve been talking up Valentine’s Day and all things hearts. While I see it as a holiday full of commercial hype and overpriced flowers, I’m reminded that for children it can be full of play and joy and loads of sugar. Mmmmm.

When N developed an addiction to sweet potatoes last week, I bought a five-pound bag of the little beauties only to find out she’s not eating them this week. Of course. So, amidst my plan to freeze a batch of roasted sweet potatoes I realized that they’d also be good for carving up some heart stamps.

So I cut one in half and carved out a couple hearts.

The heart shape rises about 1/2 inch off the potato base to help us get some nice, clean prints.

Materials

Potato Stamp/s
Tempera Paint. Acrylic works too, but you’ll see why I’m so happy I used washable tempera in just a moment
Brayer or Paint roller
Smooth, flat surface to squeeze the paint on
Paper for printing

I rolled out a little bit of paint so that N could cover the stamp in a mostly uniform fashion. And then she got stamping.

Lately, she’s been interested in figuring out how things work. And then once her curiosity is satisfied, she’ll move on to the next thing. So here she is, done stamping in about three minutes flat and apparently investigating the bottom of the stamp. I had to leave the room for five minutes to change her baby sister’s diaper, and now I see that perhaps she was actually wondering how that black paint would feel all over her hands and the table?

Wow! That was a surprise!

I calmly reminded myself that it’s all about the process. And thanked myself for using washable paints. On our old school table that has seen worse days.

If you try this project, I’ve added a new feature that allows you to leave a picture in the comment section.

Bubble Painting Recipe

By Rachelle

Would you like to introduce your child to bubble painting? Yes? Awesome — I’ve got just the recipe for you.

The bubble recipe I used in yesterday’s post didn’t live up to my expectations, so I went back to the drawing board (paint and soap laboratory?) and came up with something that creates big, rewarding bubbles that are easy to pull prints off of. While this worked for me, feel free to experiment with your own ratios and solutions. And if you come up with something good, please share it here. Thanks to Amy for suggesting Dawn soap and glycerin in yesterday’s comments. I love getting feedback 🙂

Bubble Painting with Kids

Bubble Painting

Bubble Painting Recipe

2 tablespoons tempera paint (liquid, not powdered)
2 tablespoons dish soap. Palmolive, Dawn, and Joy all work well, but you could also try all-natural dish soap, although my results with these soaps have been less than stellar.
1 tablespoon water
Straw/s
Paper. I cut mine into pieces that matched the size of the bowl’s opening.

Directions for Bubble Painting

Pour ingredients into a small bowl. (If you decide you want more bubbles, stick to the same 2:2:1 ratio and size up).
Insert straw into bowl and blow.
Place paper on top of bubbles and you have a print!! Voila!

Other Bubble Painting Ideas

Make Straw Bundles. Tape or rubber band three or more straws together to create a massive bubble blower. Dip the bubble blower in a 2:2:1 ratio or liquid watercolors, soap, and water. Blow! This works a lot like a bubble blower. Very fun!

Use Bubble Toys. Dip a bubble-making toy directly into the liquid watercolor mixture (See Straw Bundles, above) and blow it onto the page.

Make Cards. Once dry, cut up your beautiful bubble creations to make gift tags, greeting cards, or bookmarks.

Make Multiple Colors. Overlap colors to create depth and layering in your work.

Printed Upcycled Circle Scarf

By Rachelle

I have a stockpile of t-shirts that no longer have a purpose, just waiting to be upcycled into other things. After leafing through Todd Oldham’s Kid Made Modern, I got just the inspiration I needed to pull this activity off. The set-up was a bit involved, but not too crazy. The fabric we used in this project came from a 2nd hand XX-large never-before-worn t-shirt that I picked up for 99 cents. Awesome.

I started by cutting a couple potatoes into diamond

and square shapes.

We chose four colors of paint and spread them thinly on paper plates.

A colorful toddler-selected palette. A trend-setting selection, that’s sure to catch the eye of designers for next season’s fashions.

I cut two bands of fabric from under the arms of the t-shirt, each one about 6″ wide. This is scarf #1, wrapped around a grocery bag so that the paint doesn’t soak onto the backside of the scarf or table. Let the stamping begin.

Stamping all over.

After experiments with stamping reached their pinnacle, painting on stamps and scarves was underway.

Then the request for fabric markers came in.

And finally, after adding some apple stamps on day 2, it was done!

After N wore this simple no-sew scarf for a bit, I could see that it wants to curl up inside-out, rendering the designs almost invisible. Bummer. So it looks like I may need to add a little stitching and a fabric backing to make it work better. Aesthetics aside, this was a fun activity that made us feel good about repurposing fabric and veggies into art.

Happily shared with The T-Shirt Diaries