An Art Project Before We Go

We are headed out to go on a ski trip with 30 exchange students, and then onto visit the Arkansas Mattys, so I don't know how much I'll be posting in the next few days, but I was pretty proud of myself yesterday for the art project I came up with for doing with Makili.

Raph bought me a bunch of block printing materials for Christmas that I've been dying to get around to work on. (So many things going on all the time!) Yesterday I decided to modify the project for Makili.

We used those styrofoam trays that food comes packaged on in Market Basket. I save them for using under plants in the greenhouse, and I've used them in the past to make crafts for decorations, like at Makili's birthday luau. I decided yesterday to try using them as printing plates. I cut them to the size I wanted with scissors, and then Makili used a chop stick to draw on them, though some of his lines weren't deep enough so I also had him draw with a Sharpie, and then I traced his drawing with a chop stick.

Here is a plate ready for printing. As you can see, Makili also liked poking holes. And the smily face was my demonstration for him as to how to draw on there. He didn't do that (obviously).
Then we inked up the plate using some block printing ink and a brayer. Makili really like this part, and of course he chose red.

Here is an inked plate.Then we put the plate on the paper, turned it over and rubbed it.
Then we peeled off the finished print.
I'm not showing the best works here because a few of you might find Valentines in the mail from Makili and I don't want to ruin the surprise. Let me just tell you that my favorite works were "Tractor" and "Mommy." Limited editions, of course. I LOVED this project and the finished products were really nice. I recommend this project highly!