Embossments with Added Color - Student Work

These color embossments were the last assignment of the year for my Beginning 2-D Art students and I was so pleased with how they turned out, especially since we were running out of time and had only 5 class periods to do them.  I give each student a piece of dense cardboard and tell them to design a subject on the board by gluing down pieces of wire, yarns, other cardboard cut outs, seed beads, thin buttons, toothpicks, and anything else they can find that will give a slight embossmenrt to the paper without puncturing thru it.  So as you view these pix you will see the finished piece on top and their cardboard plate below.  Many of the plates are so well done that they are art pieces themselves.  This top one blew me out of the water it was so well done by junior Michelle Lee.  I believe she watercolored and felt tipped over the embossment.  A powerful design Michelle.

This is a printmaking assignment, and we do use an actual printing press to do it with.  After the glue on the plate has dried for 24 hours, I give the kids a piece of deckled printmaking paper (the good stuff), they wet it, blot it, then lay and center it on top of their plate and run the whole thing thru the press.  The very cool non-objective design above was done by junior Marison Arcilla. Love all the small textural elements she has drawn in on top of the embossment.

After coming out of the press they then have a choice in how to finish it out.  Watercolors, colored pencils, collage, pastels, any of their favorite color media that they have learned how to use in the class.  Can they mix their media, you bet!  The very gentle, sweet work above was done by senior Tiffany Wang, who uses giraffes a lot in her work in both the 2-d and the 3-d class.

Of course I teach them how to sign, number, date and title the piece, because after all, it is a print.  Above we have junior Sarah Zhang.  And look how that clever girl sewed buttons on top of the embossment.  Love it!

Notice how the prints come out in reverse of the plates.  Definitely makes it more difficult to design that way.  the two cuties above were done by two very talented seniors, Karen Pan and Rachel Kim.

And the snail and eye were done by senior Alex Ho and junior Gary Fong.  Great job guys! 

And lastly, another favorite of mine (sorry I didn't photo the plate) was done by junior Janice Min.  I loved, loved, loved how her watercolor dried in this piece.  Brilliant work kiddo.