Preschool Art Studio: Printmaking

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl and 19 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

Oh my goodness yall....

This Art Studio box from Mother Goose Time is my dream in a box!  If you want to see what's inside, check out this post.  If you have a little who is into art, I would highly suggest getting it.  You could even get it as a Christmas or Birthday gift.  It's just awesome. 

We have already studied self-portraits, portraits, and today we dived into Printmaking

 (one of my favorite art techniques).

Our day started with this book that came in our box.  It has great rhyme, and shows how trying something new can lead to unexpected and amazing results.  Perfect for little kids.

My girl already knew what colors made what, but this book allowed us to have some great conversations as we read...plus cuddle time. Win Win.

I then told her today we would do study printmaking.

We played "I Spy" as we looked around the room naming prints. 

"I spy with my little eye.... a flower print."  It was on her dress, which led to the inspiration for her printmaking project.

MGT supplied us with the foam shapes, cardboard lid, and paper.

All I had to add was a glue stick and paint.  

I asked my girl what 2 paint colors she would like to use (red, yellow, or blue), 

and she chose blue and red.

She decided she wanted to make a flower.

Starting with a circle for the center, she then made a petal pattern design from the little shapes we had.  We worked on placing her design first before gluing it down so the result would be what she wanted.

Now the fun part!

Using a paintbrush and some of our fingerpaints, she covered her flower design well before turning it over and pressing it onto her paper.

"Momma! It looks like coral!"

Can you see it too?  The line design created by the print, especially in the middle of the circle of her flower, led to this thought. 

She made red flower prints, then decided to try blue.

The result was beautiful purple flowers.

She applied paint to her stamp with both a paintbrush and her fingers, because little kids always have to get their fingers in the paint.  That's also why you see little blue areas on the finished piece below....little blue finger painted flowers. 

I love it.

She decided to gift it to her Daddy when he came home from work.

He loves it too. 

What can you do with this?

Make cards, or do prints all over some big sheets of paper so you can have your own gift wrap!

Art can be made for arts sake, but also to bless others!  This is the perfect summertime activity to do on those rainy afternoons or when the kids say "I'm bored."

If you would love more art ideas, be sure to follow us on Facebook where I attempt to share a few times a week what we are doing.

Hope you have a blast printing with your kiddos!