Doodlebug Dabblings: Warhol inspired printed self portraits

I love introducing children to Warhol, discussing what pop culture use to be in comparison to what it is today and being hit over the head with how out of touch and OLD you really are when they look back at you like you grew another head.

yes. I love that.

But I do love how well kids respond to Andy Warhol's work and it is a great source of inspiration when introducing printmaking. In the past I have done straight relief prints with the kids but I decided to try something new this time and I think the kids really got sick of me saying how much I loved everything by the end of the project, but I could not be happier with how this project turned out for each and every kid.

I was worried. It was far more complicated than what I have done in the past and I wasn't completely confident the younger students would be able to handle it, but things went off without a hitch and each and every child was able rise to the challenge.

We did reduction printing. And instead of explaining the entire project at once, I did one step at a time and did not share the next step until we were ready to embark on it. I think this went a long way in keeping the kids from finding it overwhelming.

First the students did a line drawing of themselves on their "working paper". I traced the size of the styrofoam square on the paper so they didn't do their drawing too large. Once they were happy with their drawing, I taped the styrofoam to the table and then just the top part of their "working paper" so they were able to lift it up and see if they had all their lines without having to worry about getting it back into the right place. They then traced over the lines as instructed with a blunt pencil. We then lifted the paper off the foam and I had them go over the indented lines one more time to make sure they were deep.

For the first print, I only had them to their outside lines. The hair line and the outside face and neck lines. I then let them pick between pink or orange ink and had each child pull three prints in the color of their choice.

I then had them put them in order from their most favorite to their least favorite.

Once every student had three prints. We started the next step which started with them cutting their heads out of the styrofoam. They then could cut their "working paper" heads out of the paper also to place over the foam. Some did them and others decided to just wing it and not rely so heavily on their working sketch. At this point, I had them add in the facial features and hair with the blunt pencil, either by tracing over with their working paper or just looking at it and putting the features in freehand. They then went back to the ink station and put turquoise ink on their styrofoam plates.

Here's the tricky part, getting it on register. When we looked at Warhol's work, I emphasized how he put things off register. How that added an energy to the work and how "boring" it might look if it had been perfectly registered. I did this knowing that their work would probably not be perfectly on register and I wanted them to embrace that aspect rather than think of it as a mistake.

I also had them start with their least favorite first pull so there wouldn't be so much pressure to "get it right". They had two practice go's to get confident with the process before placing the second pull on the final paper.

But to be truthful, they didn't really have any problems from the start, even the six year olds. Having cut the head out of the styrofoam made it quite easy for them to place it darn near perfect on register.

When they did the second step on all three pulls, I then told them I wanted them to pick one part of their drawing to highlight with a third color. Most chose their hair, but some picked a necklace or the flower on their headband. They then went back to the ink station and used a royal blue for their final color.

I think the results are fantastic and would encourage anyone to try this project with children.