It’s horrendous and snowy and rainy and just overall gross outside today, which makes me dream of bouquets of spring flowers, and also makes me want to stomp things. Put those two impulses together, and you get a handful of colorful ideas for making prints with unusual materials that I’ve been collecting for the past few months, just waiting for an excuse to try out!
Printing with Natural Materials
Using a tree cookie as a pattern: like woodblock, but less carving required! Click for source.
Printing with celery and other vegetables. Pinecones don’t work as well as you’d think, based on my previous efforts, but starfruit are great! Click for source.
Printing with Recycled Materials
Cardboard tubes are one of the most useful things ever. I bet it would be fun to squish them and make different shapes to print as well. Click for source.
There are entirely too many plastic bags under my sink. This seems like a genius way to give them some bright new life. Click for source.
Probably my favorite of the lot–surprisingly pretty and definitely helping with my wintry mix grumpiness. Click for source.
Printing with Surprising Materials
Definitely click through for this one: they made a lego print Millenium Falcon! Click for source.
This one has all kinds of possibilities based on how you mix the paint and how much you ‘squish’ the balloon in printing. I love the element of chance involved! Click for source.
Negative Prints
Looks surprisingly sharp for rolling paint over a pan of jello. I like the way the give of the substrate means you get nice even pressure. Click for source.
For a softer look, using liquid watercolors in a spray bottle works great. Seems like a ‘let’s do this outside!’ activity if you don’t want to have to do a lot of clean up, though! Click for source.
Brain Popcorn 