Art Storm in Humbie
On Wednesday 22nd March 2017, Nigel Leighton and I were welcomed into Humbie Primary School in East Lothian to deliver a Printmaking Workshop. Using the beautiful surrounding landscape as the inspiration we introduced the children to relief printmaking and goodness me, did they take to it?! Every child, yes, every child worked very hard to produce marvellous work of extremely high quality.
Here is a pictorial account of the day together with a little bit of commentary to explain…
GROUP 1
Choosing the image and tracing the image onto tissue paper
Transferring the tracing onto the plate by puncturing the paper. Inscribing or cutting into the plate.
Yes, we are now ready to ink up the plate using a roller..this could get messy! Roll up your sleeves!
Once the plate is inked we are ready to apply pressure to the paper and plate using a clean roller.
Pupils carefully printing their relief prints. Great care is taken to avoid slippage.
Peeling the paper off the plate is very exciting….has the print come out well?
YES!! Fantastic.
Now we just need the artists to sign their work.
GROUP 2
Tracing the image onto tissue paper.
Transferring the tracing onto the plate by puncturing the tissue paper.
When the inscribing or cutting is complete it is time to ink-up the plate using a roller.
Paper is place face down over the plate and even pressure is applied using a roller.
“Wow! Look at that!” It just needs the artist’s signature before being left to dry.
A happy artist next to his work.
GROUP 3
Tracing the image onto tissue paper before transferring it to the plate.
When the transferring is complete it is time to join the dots by inscribing the plate.
Inking-up the plate using a roller. Pressure is then applied to the paper over the plate.
The paper is peeled off the plate which is very exciting as we will see the result of all the hard work.
Slowly does it….yes, another high quality relief print.
It comes as no surprise to Nigel and Pete that there are two more outstanding pieces of work.
“YES!!! It worked!” Well done!
Prints are hung to dry before trimming and framing.
The prints are left to dry over-night in Nigel’s studio.
PARENTS
Introduction to relief printmaking before tracing the image onto the tissue paper.
Great help provided by the pupils as they teach their parents how it is done.
It is easy to see from where the children get their skills…great work from the parents!
It was lovely to see the encouragement given to the parents by the children.
“Well done, Mum! You have done it!”
The children’s prints have now been trimmed to size, framed, strung and delivered for exhibition at Humbie Hub. They will be available for viewing on Sunday 26th March and there will be an official Preview Evening on Wednesday 29th March 2017. Get along to see the incredibly good work produced by children from Humbie Primary School. Their attitude to learning new skills and techniques along with their pleasant and polite manner made our day an extremely fulfilling one. Nigel and I were very impressed with everything that they did and it was a privilege to work with them. The parents behaved themselves as well! 😉 Seriously, the whole day was a great success in terms of the quality of the work produced by children and parents alike but it would not be fair if Nigel and I did not remark on the friendly hospitality, professionalism and assistance of the staff from Humbie School. Without their help throughout the day, guiding and encouraging the children as well as being so helpful to Nigel and me, we just would not have achieved the same results. The home-made banana cake just topped it off! 😉