Making Copies! Printing and STEAM.

Transcription

1 Making Copies! Printing and STEAM. Objective: Students will create works of art using both mechanical and digital printing, in the process learning about the development of printing technology and the science behind ink and the various processes for making multiple images. They will hypothesize about the limits of the durability of copied images and test their hypotheses by exposing images to the sun and documenting the effect that materials, process and color have on the outcome. Materials: *Quantities depend on the amount of students per activity. Mechanical Printing Block Printing: Small linoleum blocks. (4 X 5 is a good size- at least two per student) Block printing ink. Linoleum cutters Brayers Printing press if available or rolling pin if not. Foam board printing (for younger students) Foam board/fruit trays from the supermarket. (at least two per students) Block printing ink Dull pencils Brayers Digital Printing Computer Printer Internet Connection Additional Items needed Rulers Rags/Wipes Glue Scissors Student aprons or old shirts Hand Mirrors Scrap paper 9 X12

2 PROCEDURE: The general goal of this activity is to create a mixed media collage using both mechanical prints and digital found images printed on a printer (digital print). PART 1 Digital Printing *Students must have access to computers and printers for this part, they can share but there must be enough for all students to be able to print a few images. Step 1 Prepare a working area besides the computers and provide enough scissors and glue for all the students to use. Have a stack of 8.5 X 11 or 9 x12 paper ready. Step 2 Discussion of digital printing, the printing press and mass media. Ask where the student see printed material. Books? Magazines? Product Boxes? Billboards? There is printed material, images that are copied over and over mass produced all around them. Printing is the process of using ink to create an image. Digital Printing uses a computer to save an image and send instructions to a digital printer to reproduce the image. Additionally, the image may be altered or edited before printing. This is called desktop publishing or graphic design. Step 3 Students will choose a theme, teacher guides the discussion to choose an appropriate theme efficiently. It should be something the interests them. Step 4 Students will search the web for images that they may print to create a collage. They will be cutting and pasting several collages so they will need a number of images. They may be copies of the same picture. Making copies of images is the point of this lesson so it is appropriate. Step 5 Each student receives three sheets of scrap paper. They cut and glue their found images to create new designs leaving space for block printing that will be added in Part 2. PART 2 Mechanical Printing (Analog) Step 1 Steps in the process of creating a block print (foam print option at the end) Pre-prep by covering tables in plastic tablecloths to protect area from printing inks and easy clean-up afterwards. Set up area for each students to include: One small linoleum block One cutter Pencil Alternative: Small foam plate or tray

3 Blunt pencil Set up a printing station with plastic surface to roll out ink At least 4 brayers for different colors 4 colors of block printing ink (no white unless printing on black paper) Space for the students to print. Hand mirrors. Hand wipes for the students to wipe their hands and the printing area. Printing press if available. Step 2 Preparation for the STEAM Lesson Write both science and art vocabulary words on board. Encourage students to rely on vocabulary when discussing the following: Present to students the set up and the printing ink. Demonstrate the tubes of ink and how the ink flows. Bring up Viscosity and what material the consistency of the ink reminds them of (toothpaste?). Discuss how this may differ from their idea of ink and how many different types of ink there may be e.g. drawing ink, gel ink, printer ink/toner, and why they may have a different consistencies for the purpose. Define ink as a Pigment (powdered colored substance either natural or artificial) in a mixture with a substance such as oil, glue and water, wax, etc. Step 3-Procedure Block Print 1. Have students write their names on the back of the linoleum block or foam tray. The will be called the plate from now on. 2. Ask students to create a design keeping with the theme of Part Demonstrate with a prepared plate how printing will take place: Use a plate that clearly demonstrated that the image is reversed when printing so that if the students want to make words they must make mirror images of the letters. Instruct them to use the mirrors to check their drawing before carving. 4. Students sketch a drawing on the front of the plate keeping in mid how images and reversed and checking in the mirrors that the image is coming up as they want. Encourage students to make thick lines and large shaded in areas. 5. Block Printing: Students will carve out the parts that are not shaded in with their linoleum cutters. They must hold their cutters with one hand wrapped around the handle and always point away from their bodies and hands. Foam Printing: Students use a blunt pencil to press down any parts that they have sketched so that that drawn section is lower than the rest. (the foam print will reverse the colors on the plate because it is difficult to sketch on the foam without pressing it down already)

4 6. Students must collect their collages from part 1 and take them with the plate to the printing station. Allow only as many students to fit in the printing station up at once, the others should wait in their seats to avoid accidents. 7. Each student must place printing plate on the plastic or metal surface and roll the ink out with the brayer slowly until the brayer is filled with ink, then roll the brayer on the plate so as to fill it with ink except in the recessed lines. 8. They will then set down the brayer upside down so that the inked surface does not touch the table. Students place their collage on the plate deciding whether their print should go over the glued image or on the side or if the collage should have more than one print on it. Each brayer should have a different color and should only be used with that color so that cleaning will not be necessary until the end. 9. After the paper is placed on the plate the students rolls a clean brayer over the paper (or if you have a printing press you may run them through the press- this is not recommended with foam prints). 10. Student pulls the paper off the plate and puts it to dry on a drying rack or a flat surface with nothing on it. After which time it may have another print added on or left as it is. At this point the artwork is called a print. 11. Students should have more than one collage so they may print more than once. 12. Student finalizes the print by writing their name on the bottom of the print in pencil. Part 3 The effects of light on a print and the durability or mass media. Discussion and experiment. Background: Printmaking is an art created during the middle ages to make images available to a wide range of people. This was the beginning of mass media. Today, images are everywhere and we a bombarded with printed material most of which ends up in the garbage. The technology which led to the true development of mass media is a machine called the printing press. The most lasting version of this invention was created by Johanne Guttenberg in 15 th Century Germany, this press made it very easy to create complex volumes such as books and newspapers and make many copies of them. The principle is still the same: raised or cut lines will take on ink. The paper only touches these lines and so the image is reproduces. The Guttenberg press used letters that could be moved and recombined to create different words so that it would not be necessary to cut whole pages of books each time. Today the computer allows this process to be even easier by breaking down an image or text into dots of four colors: Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black and sending them to a printer which reproduces these dots in order to re-create the image. Most printing today is so fine that these dots cannot be seen by the naked eye. Students may use a microscope if available to look for the dots in a print both commercial or from a home printer. A lot of printed matter today is made to be disposed of. Product packaging will have printed matter on it used to call attention to the box and inform the buyer but is meant to be destroyed and thrown away. One of the first important inventions brought about by the printing press is the newspaper, often a daily or weekly which would be disposed of when a day or week old.

5 Even today, an original hand-made work of art is considered more valuable than a printed or copied image because there is only one. And printed images are less durable than painting or sculptures due to their use of ink to recreate an image. Experiment: Photodegradation: When Ultraviolet (UV) light hits ink it causes a chemical change which results in the color changing, becoming lighter. This effect is affected both by the color of the ink as well as the chemical makeup. Discuss this with students and ask them to hypothesize as to which colors are more or less likely to fade? Do they believe that the printer ink or the black printing ink will fade first? Record the class hypotheses and have students choose images to place out in the sun. Over time record the changes of the images over time confirming or refuting the hypothesis. Additional Discussion Points: 3D printing An emerging technology becoming more common today is 3D printing. As in flat printing, where an image is built up from dots of ink, in 3D printing a design is made on a computer which commands a 3D printer to build up the designed object from small particle of a substance. 3D printers are becoming more common and affordable for home and small business use but have been in industry for some time. For example the Mim (Metal Injection Molding) machine is used to manufacture small spare parts easily and cheaply from tiny metal particles that are then fused together. See the following websites for more information on these technologies:

6 Mathematics and Printing Enlargement/Reduction Most artwork and designs done for print are generally made larger than the printed page. This is to hide imperfection and have a more professional look. An image being reduced or enlarged must keep the correct proportion. This means all parts of the image must be enlarged or reduced equally. Have students measure an 8.5 X 11 sheet of printer paper diagonally with a ruler. Divide the number by 2: 14/2=7 Mark the number 7 on the paper diagonally. Draw a line from the edge of the paper to the mark at 7 inches and measure the length of that line (about 4.25 inches) Draw a line from the bottom of the paper to the 7 inch mark and measure the length of that line (about 5.5 inches) The proportion or scale of the rectangle drawn to the full sheet of paper is 1:4. The rectangle would fit four times on the larger sheet of paper. Additionally if you draw a diagonal line on the paper and measure any length smaller than the full 14 inches and use it to draw a rectangle, any rectangle made would be in proportion to the full size sheet.

7 Vocabulary Visual Arts Collage Design Ink Printmaking Print Proportion Science Analog Digital Hypothesis Mixture Ultraviolet (UV) Light Viscosity Mathematics Scale Proportion

8 Standards Florida State Standards Big Ideas (Mathematics) MAFS.5.MD.1 Convert like measurement units within a given measurement system. MAFS.6.RP: Ratios & Proportional Relationships MAFS.6.G.1 : Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume. MAFS.912.G-GMD.2 : Visualize relationships between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. Florida State Standards Big Ideas (Science) SC.5.P.9 Changes in Matter SC.5.P.10 Forms of Energy SC.5.P.11 Energy Transfer and Transformation SC.35.CS.PC.1-4 Computer Science: Personal, Community, Global and Ethical Impact. SC.7.N.1 The Practice of Science SC.912.CS.CS.1-4 Computer Science Communication Systems and Computing Florida State Standards Big Ideas (Technology) CTE-AATC.68.PRINT: Printing Technology Florida State Standards Big Ideas (Visual Art) VA.5.S.2 Development of skills, techniques, and processes in the arts strengthens our ability to remember, focus on, process, and sequence information. VA.5.F.2 Careers in and related to the Visual Arts VA.68.F Innovation, Technology and the Future VA.912.s: Skills Techniques and Processes.