LESSON PLANS
“WHERE DO WE COME FROM? Printmaking around the Globe”
When designing my second year curriculum, I wanted to bring two things to the kids: a study of art apart from the West and helping the students understand their cultural heritage. The art making I didn’t think was going to be a problem since nearly every basic art making technique is found on every continent in some way, but connecting it to cultures would be a challenge. I needed something connecting Marshallese, Hmong, Hispanic, and Anglo. I began my exploration in the Pacific Islands where I came across kappa stamping. This was a stamp, a form of printmaking! From there I gathered other types of printmaking from each continent or culture, finding connections in technique to develop into a whole idea. Presented here are those four projects.
Scratching the Surface - Mexican Lacquered Gourds It is surely inaccurate to say that Latin America has no unique printmaking technique, however, what that technique is happens to be so obscure that it can’t be found in books or on the internet. In the absence of this information, Mexican lacquerware fit the bill since it utilizes the same principles of negative versus positive space, sets a foundation for managing a multistep art process, and connected my Hispanic students to their more ancien
Scratching the Surface - Mexican Lacquered Gourds It is surely inaccurate to say that Latin America has no unique printmaking technique, however, what that technique is happens to be so obscure that it can’t be found in books or on the internet. In the absence of this information, Mexican lacquerware fit the bill since it utilizes the same principles of negative versus positive space, sets a foundation for managing a multistep art process, and connected my Hispanic students to their more ancien
Scratching the Surface - Mexican Lacquered Gourds It is surely inaccurate to say that Latin America has no unique printmaking technique, however, what that technique is happens to be so obscure that it can’t be found in books or on the internet. In the absence of this information, Mexican lacquerware fit the bill since it utilizes the same principles of negative versus positive space, sets a foundation for managing a multistep art process, and connected my Hispanic students to their more ancien
Making Waves - Japanese Block Printing Everyone knows, “The Great Wave,” but does anyone ever stop to read that its creator, Hokusai, actually did thirty-five other block prints of Mt. Fuji? What was his intention and what was art like during the ukiyo-e period of Japanese history? This project connects my Hmong students to their Asian heritage while helping peers see there is more to Asia than China - a sadly common assumption in my elementary school.
Making Waves - Japanese Block Printing Everyone knows, “The Great Wave,” but does anyone ever stop to read that its creator, Hokusai, actually did thirty-five other block prints of Mt. Fuji? What was his intention and what was art like during the ukiyo-e period of Japanese history? This project connects my Hmong students to their Asian heritage while helping peers see there is more to Asia than China - a sadly common assumption in my elementary school.
Making Waves - Japanese Block Printing Everyone knows, “The Great Wave,” but does anyone ever stop to read that its creator, Hokusai, actually did thirty-five other block prints of Mt. Fuji? What was his intention and what was art like during the ukiyo-e period of Japanese history? This project connects my Hmong students to their Asian heritage while helping peers see there is more to Asia than China - a sadly common assumption in my elementary school.