Summer Fun Fridays: Printmaking

Welcome to another week of Summer Fun Fridays! I’m so pleased to introduce Erin, my blogging and Google Hangout buddy as a guest blogger today. Just wait until you see what fantastic fun idea for printmaking that Erin has in store for you!

Hi Creative Cynchronicity readers! I’m so happy to be able introduce myself to you! I’m Erin and most days you can find me over at My Very Educated Mother where I write about crafting with kids, cooking, homeschooling, and all that jazz. For many months now I’ve been hanging out with Cyn during various Google+Hangout On Air series and I’m so happy to be a part of her Summer Fun Friday Series!

As a homeschooler, heck as a parent, I take advantage of every learning opportunity that I can. Next Friday is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. So my goal was to have the kids make sun inspired prints using old plastic take-out trays while I talked to them about the sun and let them share with me what they knew too. That was the goal…unfortunately once I started spouting out facts they started recounting an advertisement for a show on the Science channel, “Mommy will we implode if the sun goes out?” What?  I’m sure you can guess we skipped the rest of the talk and stuck to making prints!

Supplies

• Old take-out plastic containers or trays
• Scissors
• pencil
• paint
• brushes and sponges
• paper (we used watercolor paper)

Directions

Before the kids got involved I cut the plastic so that it was in flat, square and rectangular shapes. Then I handed them over and let them get busy drawing pictures. I had to remind my daughter to press harder so the pencil would make an indention and my son had the opposite problem.

Once they were satisfied with their pictures we crafted a makeshift handle on the back of the tray (it was just a folded pieces of cardstock and tape), sponged on a layer of paint, and then pressed it onto our page.

We repeated it a few times using the sponge and brushes to create different texture effects with the paint and mixed the colors up in unconventional ways. Who doesn’t love a purple sun? The kids could have spent the afternoon making different paintings but we eventually ran out of trays.

I hope you enjoyed this fun summer project and if you’re looking for more ideas I invite you to visit me on Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.

Thanks again Cyn for letting me share and I look forward to reading more great summer fun ideas!

Thanks so much for joining me today Erin – I just love this idea!  Can’t wait to give it a try with my little grand niece and nephew – heck, I can’t wait to try it out myself.