A radial printmaking lesson for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. These grade levels at North Avondale Montessori had never done a formal printmaking project, so it was broken up into three parts. First, they created a background then secondly made a printing plate. Students lastly printed their designs, rotating the prints around the paper. The desired effect was radial symmetry, where the design radiates outward and is balanced around a central point.

1. THE PAINTED BACKGROUND

Students painted a background featuring concentric circles, or circles that all have the same center. They located the center of the 12”x12” piece of paper by folding it in half both ways and making note of where the folds intersect. Then students used tempera cake paints to create the background. They were encouraged to use a unified color scheme, choosing which colors to work with.

2. THE PRINTING PLATE

Students created their printing plates using a 6”x6” piece of poster board and foam stickers. They placed the stickers on the board following the quarter-circle guidelines. It was important for students to repeat similar shapes along these guidelines in order to achieve a radial pattern.

3. THE PRINTING PROCESS

Using a mat, brayer, printmaking ink, and a wooden rolling pin, students made their radial prints. First, they laid out either black or white ink on the mat. Then they rolled the brayer through the ink and then on top of their printing plate, covering the foam stickers with ink. Then the students carefully flipped their printing plate over and lined it up with the edge of the painted background. Once they set the plate down, they used the wooden rolling pin to apply pressure to the back of the printing plate. Students peeled the plate off off the background and repeated this process three more times, rotating the printing plate around central axis point on the background and executing a print in each corner.

THE FINAL RESULT:

THE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS: 

The following documents were developed and used as guides for the Radial Printmaking Lesson. Lesson Plan - Presentation - Grading Rubric