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Grade: K+

Age: 5+

Activity Summary:

What You Need:

• Paint or ink.
• Styrofoam meat trays.
• Scissors.
• Pencils.
• Paper.
• Soft rubber brayers (printing rollers that can be found at art supply stores). You can substitute small paint rollers or even paint brushes if rollers aren't readily available.
• An old cookie tray or a piece of plexiglass to roll the ink out on.

What You Do:

1. First cut the edges off of the trays so that you have a flat surface to work on.
2. Next, draw an image onto the tray using a pencil.
3. Remember, your printed image will appear in reverse!
4. Follow the printing with a brayer directions.
   (found on the Printmaking 102 page) You could instead use a paintbrush to cover over the styrofoam with paint or ink, lay the paper overtop, press lightly and voila.
5. Repeat until you have an edition of prints.

One step further:

• Instead of drawing into the styrofoam, you could press down areas you don't want printed.
• You could also cut out sections of the styrofoam, ink them up separately, pop the pieces back together and print.
• Substitute corrugated cardboard for styrofoam.
• Use a carpenter's nail to scratch out designs on the cardboard.

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