Printmaking in the Style of Sheyne Tuffery
It was a very busy and enjoyable day in the art room today. Ross’s class joined me for a day of art along with half of Amy’s class. I am very proud of how respectful everyone was of each other while creating their artworks, space was at a premium in the art room today.
For today’s lesson we continued with this term’s focus on printmaking. The students learnt about the artworks of Wellington-based Polynesian artist Sheyne Tuffery. Sheyne is well-known for his prints and wood-cuts, in particular his series of prints that focus on local New Zealand birds such as giant palaeo-penguins and large moas. We used this series of works as a base for creating our own artworks today.
The first thing we did today was make the background for the artworks. The students painted yellow pieces of paper with white paint and then used paint scrapers to create interesting textures. I did a step-by-step demonstration on how to draw a moa and reverse it to make a silhouette.
Next, they students studied images of New Zealand birds and drew sketches as an exercise in understanding their subject matter. I wish I had taken photos of them for the blog, the drawings were beautiful! After this the students simplified their bird drawings and drew them onto a polystyrene printing block. They added siapo patterns to their drawings although some of the drawings were a bit small to show detailed patterns.
The students made prints by rolling their brayers in the inking well and loading up their printing blocks with an even amount of ink. They placed a blank piece of paper on top and rolled a clean brayer over the paper to transfer their image from the printing plate. They made a red and black print each.
Once everything was dry the students started putting their final composition together. We looked at the compositions of Sheyne Tuffery’s works and talked about balance, movement and overlapping the separate pieces. I love the finished pieces of art - I imagine they will look wonderful put in a frame and hung up at home. For now they are in the Venture hub.
