WiPs: "Common Threads" Printmaking project | 2D Design

I am doing printmaking for the first time ever with the 2D Design classes and I cannot tell you how much fun we are having with it!!! Ever since I have started teaching art, I have always had a challenge with 2D Design class specifically and this year? My world is rocked because I am loving almost everything about it. What took me so long to realize that 2D Design class can be awesome?

Printmaking is just SO awesome because it is absolutely chock full of moments of "big revelations" when you finally peel the printing plate off of the support and see what the print/impression looks like! 

All of the adventures with color mixing and arrangement and ink application are really fun to watch happen!

My issue with the 2D class hasn't been because of the students by any stretch but much more the artwork and project ideas themselves. I am naturally more inclined to like, understand, and want to create artwork that is 3D. It's just how my brain works. And because of that? Well... it's no wonder that the 2D Design class has presented such an incredible challenge for me as a teacher.

I (mostly) do not enjoy drawing but I do love painting if only for the truly tactile and sensory opportunities that painting always presents. Little did I know that 2D art and design can offer sensory experiences that have plenty of dimension as well. I stand corrected!

Setting up an "inking station" in the back of the classroom just happened like this and it's work so well I am keeping it.

Right now the students are in the midst of stages 2 and 3 of the creative process/framework I have been using for all of the 2D design projects/lessons so far this year.

(By the way, I am working to get a template for this up and going so that you can access it and use it more readily if you want to. I will also try and present all of my lesson plans in this format for them to be easier to understand.)

My goal is to push for this project to be finished by the close of this week and for the 2D students to be moving on to their next project, "A Place of Grace" (that employs painting from photo references with oil pastels) - by the beginning of next week.