Wayne Thiebaud Gumball Machine Printmaking by 1st Grade

2013-14 has been the school year of new projects for me. One of my goals this year was to do at least one new lesson with each grade level. I think I've even been able to get in a couple new projects with most grades. Another goal was to get a good printmaking lesson written for all five grade levels. (Look for my upcoming presentation about elementary printmaking curriculum at the Art of Ed Online Summer Conference!!!) This was one of those two birds with one stone type of lessons. 

The whole project was inspired by the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. Of course we all know he painted all kinds of delicious looking food. First graders immediately connect to this. We talked about why people make artwork and how different people have different reasons they create art. 

I was able to connect Thiebaud to printmaking simply because the gumballs were a perfect way of introducing printmaking to my first graders. I took about 30 regular plastic soda caps and hot glued little circles of foam to the top of them. Kids were able to apply tempera paint to the foam circles with a brush, then print circles to their heart's content. The rest of the project was simply made out of construction paper. I was really happy with the results! 

Download the lesson plan here!