4th Grade Animal Printmaking (The best printmaking project I have ever done!)

Let me start out by saying this has been one of the most successful and visually stunning projects that I've ever done with my students. It is definitely the most exciting printmaking project that we've ever done at Thomas. I wrote the lesson and went into the project thinking that it would probably be pretty good. I told my students that I'm absolutely blown away by the results of their talent and hard work. This lesson is a keeper. 

My previous 4th grade printmaking lesson was decent, but not outstanding. It was too similar from an art-making perspective to the Wild Things I do with my 2nd graders. This year, I really wanted to push the medium a little more by printing with multiple colors. I ended up deciding to push it to three colors and add in a little vocab by also bringing in the use of complimentary colors. 

Check out the lesson plan here!

Close up of the piece above. Wow. 

Whew. That was a lot of examples, right? I just couldn't help myself this time. They were all so good that I had to show them off. If you're still reading, you're in luck. I'm going to tell you how I did this project and I'm going to use pictures! Let your inner kid rejoice.

Start with a drawing of whatever you want to print. I had my kids do animal portraits. I gave them each a piece of the foam they would be printing on, then had them trace around it to give them the size of the final artwork. I then collected the foam for use the following week.

Tape your drawing over the printing foam and use a dull pencil or other blunt tool to press
down on the lines of just the outline of the subject. Take the paper off and press down
again to make sure the marks are deep enough to make proper prints. I had my students make sure they ended up with three good prints of the background on the first day of printing.

Re-tape the original drawing the following class. Press down any remaining details. Cut out the subject along the line that was pressed down last time. Now print with this piece directly on top of the original prints. I had my students use at least one set of complimentary colors.

On the final day of printing, cut out a small detail that makes sense to print in a
third color. Then, you guessed it, print this piece right on top of the original prints.

This was my demo piece I did with the materials above.

4th Grade Pop Art Prints

4th grade students recently finished a study of pop artists, specifically Andy Warhol. I do a very similar (a little too similar from a printmaking perspective I think) project with 2nd grade, so I think I'll be changing this one around a bit next year. I've seen some techniques on Pinterest lately that show how to change the foam by cutting parts out, then doing multiple color prints. I think that is the way of the future for me!


Students drew several sketches of items found in popular culture and chose one for their print. Several students used words, so we got to talk about how printmaking reverses images and how we could work around that to make the words come out the right way. After pressing their drawings into the foam printing material, students then made four prints over the course of two classes, then cut them out and mounted them on black construction paper. This is usually a very successful project and this year was no different. Feel free to check out the lesson plan by clicking the link below!


Click here to see the lesson plan!

4th Grade Warhol Prints

These are examples from a 4th grade printmaking project.  4th grade students learned about Andy Warhol and other important artists in the Pop Art movement.  Students learned that Pop Artists usually take ordinary objects and turn them into art.  Each student chose something from their everyday life and pressed their image into foam printmaking sheets.  They then learned about using ink and brayers to create a total of four prints.  

2nd Grade Wild Things

2nd Graders were inspired by Maurice Sendak's book "Where the Wild Things Are."  Each student designed his or her own wild thing by combining parts of many animals together.  They then pressed their wild thing into a foam printing material.  Each student printed their wild thing in four different colors before mounting the finished prints on black paper.  We used construction paper crayons to add creative text at the bottom of the page.  Interesting fact: construction paper crayons can be erased!  

5th Grade Warhol Self Portraits

5th Grade students recently finished a project about Andy Warhol. They learned about Warhol's life and work as well as about the style of art known as Pop Art. After studying Warhol's portrait series, each student worked from a digital photograph to make a two piece self portrait series using warm and cool colors.