Our Key Stage 3 Art Club (Years 7-9) exhibited at this year’s Printfest in Ulverston. Printfest is an annual selling exhibition featuring some of the UK’s best printmakers.
The Art Club students responded to a brief set by the organisers and were inspired by Printfest’s Printmaker of the Year, Gail Mason. The prints were created over five lunchtime sessions. They started by sketching out landscape scenes from their imagination and memories of the Lake District mountains that surround us.
The artwork was then built up using a variety of different print techniques. The base layers of colour were formed by mono print, that were painted directly onto the table, and laid the paper over the top to take the print. Students chose different tones of the same colour, or complimentary colours to print with textured materials on top of their base layers.
Finally, stamps were created with polystyrene to print trees and shrubs into their landscapes.
The colour palettes we used were very much inspired by the exciting colour themes used by Gail Mason. Students felt free to experiment because of the expressive style of Gail Mason’s pieces.