Itaglio Archives | Ironbridge Framing

Printmaking at Christmas with kids

With the kids enjoying the festive season and having a break from school you might find them sat in your printing studio’s more often. We’ve come up with a few printmaking activities they can get involved with this christmas and joining in on your printmaking sessions

Mono-type’s are great for kids, simply sit them down with a piece of styrene and some caligo safe wash ink (easier to get out of clothes) let them paint away. You can let them get stuck in use paint brushes, leaves and branches and anything else you are willing to use to let your child run wild and make their marks. Simply pull through your press we recommend printing onto bread and butter paper from John Purcells it’s an excellent proofing paper, super affordable perfect for letting those littles have some fun.
Stencils are great fun simply cut out some shapes from some thick card we find the cardboard off cereal boxes work best as you can wipe these down and reuse them. You can even used corrugated cardboard for a textured look peel off that top layer for that striped look. Simply cut your shape and apply ink to it using a roller pull through your press, again we recommend printing onto bread and butter paper.
For those kids who are little bit older why not let them try there hand at lino-cut or drypoint. These are great printing processes to introduce your child to printmaking it allows them take their time and throughly enjoy the process. When they have finished their plate you get the joy of helping them print it on your press and seeing their eyes light up seeing their final result.

To really get thing festive the processes discussed could be used to make the following things, christmas cards, wrapping paper, place settings for your christmas tables and much more. Or maybe it’s just a nice christmas gift for the grandparents to get framed.

We hope these ideas have helped keep your little ones entertained.

Have a very Merry Christmas

Thank you for reading!

Happy Printmaking!

All the best,

Ellie & The Team!

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If you have read to the bottom of this blog you are entitled to a free gift, please email Jenny@IronbridgefineArts.co.uk with your preferred printing Relief or Intaglio to claim. Postage of £6.99 will still apply.

Tags: Gunningetchingpress, Ironbridgefinearts, Ironbridgeprintmakers, Itaglio, kidsprintingideas, Printmakers, printmaking, printmakingwithkids, printmakingworkshopswithchildren, Relief

‘Papilon printing press’

Shrewsbury high school are the latest and luckiest owners of a Gunning etching press No.2!

Dave, a member of our team delivered and trained Shrewsbury High’s staff members on how to assemble, set up and print on their brand new Gunning etching press.

The students at Shrewsbury high school have decided their Gunning etching press needed its own personal nickname. Students and staff set up a competition suggesting different names until the name ‘Papilon printing press’ was picked.

Students and staff have been so excited to print on Papilon, they have been and visited us here in Ironbridge for an Etching workshop were they learnt how to etch with specialist printmaker Jenny. A group of 5 students spent the day learning how to etch into metal creating their own steel plates.

Students at Shrewsbury High have and are continuing to create some beautiful prints in their own print studio at Shrewsbury high using the printmaking processes taught to them from our team here at Ironbridge printmakers.