Railroad Printmaking

Today in art class it was my groups turn to teach the class about print making. Everyone was given a rectangle piece of Styrofoam and were suppose to etch whatever design they wanted to into it. We had to fill up at least 3/4 of the rectangle with the design. I chose to use silver ink on blue paper. We used a roller to put a thin layer of paint onto the Styrofoam and then pressed it onto the blue paper or whatever color of paper that each person had. I kept doing this process until I got three prints I was happy with. Then we cut out the three prints. We then had to turn our prints into a train. The students were asked to put South Dakota resources into their train cars. I chose to put coal in my cars. The final step in the activity was to create a background for the train and also add wheels to each train car.

An extension activity for this project would be having students do a little research about the South Dakota railroads. They would have to write a two page paper about the railroads. Also they could include information about the picture they created. The students could explain why they created that background and its importance to South Dakota.