Wood Block Printing

Wood Block Printing

Grade Level: 2-4

Classroom Time: 45 minutes (25 minutes Day 1, and 20 minutes Day 2)

Materials:

Glue                                       Block Printing                                  Paper sheets

String                                 Tempura Paint

Sponges                             Wood blocks (5” x 5”)

Objectives:

1. Given instruction and reading material, students will describe for block printing.

2. Given instruction and materials, students will make a block print and produce a picture made from the print.

3. Given instruction and reading materials, students will name three methods of printing.

   1. Read Block Printing.

   2. Choose a design for your woodcut.

   3. Immerse the string in glue.

   4. Create the design with string on the wood block.

   5. Allow the glue and string to dry overnight.

   6. Spread tempura paint on the sponge.

   7. Press the string image on the block into the sponge.

   8. Press the wood block image onto paper.

   9. Repeat the print to make several images.

Teacher’s introduction to the material:

In this lesson students will experiment only with woodcut printing. If possible show students how lithography and intaglio printing are done.

Instruction:

10.  Draw other images to create a scene.

Skills: Art, History, Reading comprehension.

Vocabulary: Block-books, Grain, Intaglio, Lithography, Protrude, Relief, Ukiyo-e, Woodcut, Xylography.

Creative ways to cultivate agriculture. ND Department of Agriculture. Bismarck, ND.

History of Printing. Kidipede. Retrieved from: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/literature/printing.htm

What is block printing? Answers. Retrieved from: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_block_printing

Block Printing

"Woodblock Printing" is a method used to print text, images or patterns on textiles and later paper. This method was widely used throughout East Asia and originating in China. Somebody in Tang Dynasty China, about 650 AD, had the idea of carving wooden blocks with a page of text, then inking it and pressing paper on the block to print a page. Patterns and letters were carved into wooden blocks, so that the letter or pattern is chiseled and protrudes so to speak from the wooden block. These blocks are then coated with ink, and brought pressed firmly and evenly onto the paper or cloth. The content would print as a mirror-image.

Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block-books produced mainly in the 15th century. The wood block is carefully prepared as a relief matrix, which means the areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife, chisel, or sandpaper leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block was cut along the grain of the wood. The art of carving the woodcut is technically known as xylography, though the term is rarely used.

Printing is simply the transferring of ink from a carved surface to paper by means of pressure. The four basic types of printing are relief, intaglio, lithography and screen, in order of invention. Relief printing is the oldest from of printing and that is the method we are going to use in class today. In relief printing, ink is applied to a raised surface and then pressed onto another surface leaving behind an imprint. Examples of this would include wood cuts, potato prints and rubber stamps. With

intaglio printing, a surface is etched, then covered with ink. The ink on the surface is removed; the ink in the cracks is pressed onto paper. Money is produced through intaglio printing. Lithography printing involves the use of greasy inks that repel one another. A picture is drawn with one substance and then washed over with an ink. The ink only adheres where there is no repelling substance and the plate is then pressed to paper.