Wow what an amazing week we have had in the starfish class! Our artist for art week was Elizabeth Catlett. We learned that she is an American born printmaker and sculptor. She is famous for her prints and sculptures of black people and she said that the purpose of her art is to “present black people in their beauty and dignity for ourselves and others to understand and enjoy.”
We explored different print making techniques. The first was a lithograph print, where we used card and a wax crayon to create stamps.
The second technique that we learned was a relief print, and made our own stamps using polystyrene (lino-style print)
Our final piece of artwork was based on one of Catlett’s prints – Sharecropper (a portrait of a man wearing a hat) We used photos of ourselves, and then the technique of tracing and transferring our design using tracing paper. Then we carved out our design onto our polystyrene, used roller to apply black paint and created a number of prints.
Here are our final Prints:
