Pop Art Printmaking: Making Our Printing Plates

4th grade artists started off the year by learning about the Pop Art movement, which began in the 1950's. Artists focused on objects and scenes from everyday life and popular culture, borrowing techniques from commercial art and popular illustration, like comics and cartoons. 

Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles (1962)

We looked at a few examples of screen prints made by Andy Warhol, who made multiple prints of his artwork. A lot of his art featured commercial products that were mass produced, so he chose to mass produce his artwork, as well. After sharing our observations, we discussed what popular culture means to us today. 

Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign Series (1982)

Each class made a list on the whiteboard, which included things like sports teams, music, video games, social media and fashion. Then students brainstormed at least four ideas for a print, featuring pop culture imagery that is important or meaningful to them. 

Students were also given reference images for inspiration, with sports team logos, emojis and cartoon characters, among other things. Fidget spinners were a popular idea this year! Each student selected one of their four ideas to make into a print that would be repeated multiple times. 

After placing their chosen drawing on top of a piece of styrofoam, students traced over their drawing with a wooden stylus. Then they removed the paper and went over their drawing again, to make the lines deeper. 

The final step was to go over their lines one more time with a blunt or dull pencil, to make their lines a little wider. Then students cut out their design from the styrofoam. We will now be printing with them, so stay tuned to see our prints!