After 17 years of photography classes, art teacher Laura Russell decided to add a bit of freshness to the fine arts program at Gibson Southern High School. She dropped the old class and adopted what she concluded was a great substitute: printmaking.
“[The photography class] was kind of stale,” Russell said. “[With] the capabilities of the cellphones to edit and take good photos, we no longer needed the class.”
Printmaking is a technique used to make many impressions of the same design from the same template an artist carved. The process consists of the artist sketching a design to print on a piece of paper, then transferring the sketch onto a linoleum block and carving out the negative space so all that is left is the design the artist wants to appear in the print.
In some aspects, printmaking is more forgiving than painting and drawing.
“You can get the same image several times and then with that image, you can go in and change the color, you can collage it and you can also trace and transfer everything you need to do and nothing has to be free drawn,” Russell said. “Like, in painting and drawing, you draw it on [the paper], and it’s stuck there. In printmaking, you can draw it, you can look at it and you can transfer it before you ever get it to the block, so it’s more forgiving and [has] more options.”
Because printmaking is more forgiving, students are not required to take another art class before enrolling in printmaking.
“I needed another [fine] art[s] credit,” sophomore Ivy Newman said. “Currently, I have one art credit, and I needed two, and I also wanted to join Art Club this year. So, I needed to take an art class and printmaking was my best bet.”
For those who prefer to take a hands-on approach to their school work, printmaking allows students to get right in with their hands.
“It is very hands-on,” Russell said. “We’re moving toward so much computer art and, you know, turning things in on Google Classroom, and then printmaking is like, you’ve got the stuff in your hands, getting messy.”
Messy or not, students have been delighted with the newly added class. According to sophomore Sierra Mills, the class exceeded her expectations.
“At first it was photography, and I had been interested in photography,” Mills said. “And then it changed to printmaking, and I was skeptical at first. But, it ended up being an amazing class.”
While the class is enjoyable, there are things students must be mindful about when creating their prints.
“It is very fun and a very unique class in a way,” Newman said. “And, most of it is not really that difficult. It’s just like when carving [the block] you have to be careful not to hit your hands.”
Another challenge is the amount of steps that are involved with making a print, and the equipment that is required.
“There are a lot of steps you have to follow, and if you leave out one or two of the steps, it will not be successful,” Russell said.
One concern Russell has is the amount of time that students will need to print their works. There are 25 students in the class, and right now they are making small prints. As their productions grow in size and complexity, there will be a time crunch to print everything in a class period.
Though printmaking comes with its own set of challenges, the projects are enjoyable to a lot of the class. One past project that was a favorite among students was the two-block animal print.
“I did a dog that was orange and black, and it was very nice,” Newman said. “I liked it.”
According to Russell, an upcoming project that she is excited to teach is called Gelli printing, also known as Gelli Plate Printing. This is a simpler process for making monoprints, a type of printmaking that only allows one use of the image. Previously, an artist would have to have a press to transfer the design on paper to make monoprints. Now, there is a new, soft silicon plate that allows artists to create prints without a press.
With many different methods and new ideas brewing, the new printmaking class is something Russell is looking forward to continuing.
“I love to teach printmaking, and there are so many new methods that are very inexpensive that we can now use with printmaking that we couldn’t before,” Russell said.
