Polystyrene printing

Total Art Soul has a GREAT idea for putting polystyrene containers to good use after you've emptied them of your takeout. Use them for printing. The

The designs, typically linear of Juan Miro, inspired us to realize our prints with styrofoam in the 6th grade classes. This material was cut from used food trays. The small plates have become the m…

It's easy to make a print from a styrofoam plate or meat tray. Start by drawing a simple design on the styrofoam with a ball point pen. Impress the design just hard enough to make an indentation without going through the styrofoam. Next roll out some printing ink (or acrylic paint) on a tray. If you don't have a breyer you can roll the ink or paint with a small sponge paint roller. Roll out a thin layer of ink (or paint) over the styrofoam. Notice the ink lays just on top and doesn't flow…

Kids learn about the fine art of printmaking using flat pieces of styrofoam, tempera paint, and rollers to make prints.

This post follows on from Gathering Marks and Tearing Paper to Appreciate Prints by Goya, Turner and Cornelius at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Monoprinting Inspired by Goya, Turner and Cornelius in the Education Room, and shows how teachers used Plasticine to print textures. The session was facilitated by Paula Briggs and Sheila Ceccarelli from AccessArt and Kate Noble from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Since I have been exploring my interest in printmaking again, especially monotypes and drypoint, mainly because they don`t require so much expensive equipment, etc, I bought some cheap styrofoam, kind of like thin polystyrene, to try out some ideas and compositions. This is used a lot in schools, since it`s cheap and easy to make marks on, but also by professional artists and craftspeople for its versatility. Because it`s cheap, you tend not to panic about messing up and wasting expensive…

This is a continuation of my last entry regarding earlier works not seen before. The following prints were created by drawing into the surface of 1.27 cm (1/2 inch) thick blue dense styrofoam from a building materials supply shop. This is generally used for insulation of walls during home construction or renovation. It is not that expensive and can be easily cut into blocks from the main sheet with a ruler and utility blade. I used ball point pen primarily as the drawing tool as it tends to…