Mono Prints

This is an art lesson I did with my granddaughter's class. We made mono prints using plexiglass, black tempera paint, a big brush to spread the paint on the plexiglass, a q-tip, one color paper and one piece of newspaper.
I had 8 pieces of plexiglass, so for the class of 24, We printed in groups of 8, three times, while the teacher had the other students finishing a story they were writing to go with a previous art lesson.

We drew in lines--all kinds, overlapping--we didn't draw any objects or letters, just lines, and we did this quickly so the paint wouldn't dry. They laid down their color paper to press or rub with their hands, then pulled up their print...(the best part!)

With another dollop of paint, they repeated the process to print on their newspaper...

Second week: they cut into their newspaper mono print, following their crazy lines--deciding which way to go at every junction, making an interesting shape. I had them place it on their color print and turn the papers in all directions to find out how they wanted to glue it on.

I passed out three shiny gold papers to glue on--this gold paper takes on the shape of the glue underneath. You can peel off the paper and the gold remands where the glue has dried!
The students hadn't peeled off the papers yet in the first two photos.
They came up with some pretty creative titles to their combined prints.