Throughout our time at The Hills Academy, we have experimented with the following printing types:  sponges and shapes, Year 1; relief printing, Year 2; block printing, Year 3 and cold water paste printing, Year 4.

Within our year 6 learning, we focused of these different types of printing used in the art world: block printing, mono printing, lino printing, screen printing. We learnt about how these techniques are achieved, when they would be used in the world around us and what the final products may look like.
We then went on to conduct research into the famous Banksy. We discussed his work, the meanings around them and whether or not we agreed with his ways of getting messages across.
We made our own stencils, which were to include a message that could be displayed around the school, such as ‘collaborative learning’, or ‘reaching for our goals’. Once we had designed our final pieces, we drew them onto card, carefully cut them out and we used paint to print our work onto big sheets of card – some of us realised that the fiddly designs were really hard to achieve a successful print! Overall, we created some amazing pieces!

Our next project was to follow a design brief to create a sheet of wrapping paper, to wrap a small box. We were given a customer brief, which was for a female customer, who loved bright colours, intricate and repeated patterns. Our main influences were Carlos Paez Vilaro, Beatriz Milhazes, and Keith Haring, who all use repeated patterns and bright colours in their work.
With these artists in mind, we designed our ideas for the sheet of wrapping paper, thinking about pleasing the customer and meeting the design brief. We annotated our designs with how we would achieve this look, using printing methods. Then, the creating began! It was great to see everyone using interesting materials to successfully create their wrapping papers and experiment with different techniques and printing ideas – what an artistic year group we have!

Click HERE to see our final pieces!