Tree and Foliage Prints

In this printmaking project, fifth grade girls first drew a stylized tree trunk and branch design on paper which was transferred to a rubber-like material. Students used carving tools, called gouges, to carve away at the negative spaces around their tree. When the carving was finished, students used various colored inks and papers to print the tree (we even created our own tea-stained papers for printing). 

This was my example to show the process and carving techniques

 The next step was to create another small printing block on which a fall leaf design was carved. These designs were printed repeatedly directly on top of the trunk/branches using the colors of the students’ choosing. 

I originally had the idea that these would be really cool "fall" trees, but when some of the girls asked if they could do whatever colors they wanted, I figured "why not!?". I really love how different they are from one another rather than sticking to a red/orange/brown kind of color scheme, and check out these two pieces by the same student (same tree trunk and leaf blocks, but different colors and ways of printing the leaves). Isn't that pretty cool?!:

And here are the final pieces (the students each chose which of their prints they liked best wanted to display if they made multiple versions):