To meet the standard for printmaking, 2nd graders created beautiful fish collages. They looked at traditional Japanese artwork called “Gyotaku” which means “fish-rubbing” and were inspired to create their own colorful underwater artwork. We watched videos of  Gyotaku Printing and used watercolor paints and salt to create a bubbly background.

The next week was insanely messy and by the end of class the art room looked like it was underwater with all of the blue paint everywhere. Students used a variety of circular objects to create “bubbles” on their backgrounds.

“Dip and stamp. . .dip and stamp. . . dip and stamp. . . ”

Meanwhile, a few kiddos at a time worked on their Gyotaku prints at the counter. They carefully painted a rubber fish with tempera paint and gently rubbed a piece of newsprint to make a print.

The last step of the process was to cut out the fish, some coral/seaweed, and a jellyfish to complete a cool collage.

We used scrap strips of paper from our roller coaster hats to cut out shapes for plants and whatever else the students could imagine!

This project made quite a splash, I’m sure you can sea! 🙂