¡Relief! Printing Workshops
My teaching career began at age 18 as a swim instructor at a camp in Japan – a job I did for three summers. In San Francisco I taught swimming for all ages (literally infant to age 80+) and all skill levels – including a 70 year old non-swimmer! Since moving to Northern New York I have taught swimming at a Special Education school, the YMCA as well as at a summer camp. The most exciting aspect of my career has been teaching art including relief printing, PhotoShop, InDesign and drawing to students of all ages – for over 20 years. For eight summers I directed the art program and taught outdoor ethics at a Leave No Trace partner camp in the Adirondacks. Zion Forever employs me to teach a relief printing workshop to participants at Zion National Park each November, and in the summer months I teach printmaking to private students and small groups. I recently was invited to be Visiting Artist at a private high school in Nevada and will speak about my own brand of Leave No Trace Art as well as lead printmaking workshops.
I love to teach, and especially enjoy sharing my knowledge of various art media – central to my motivation is to help reveal to others their full creative potential while continuing to spread the importance of preservation of our public lands for future enjoyment.
Relief printing workshops offer an introduction to the wonderful tools and techniques of the age-old art of block printing. The workshops teach basic relief printing techniques including creating an image, cutting that image into a block and creating prints with a hand printing technique. Students work together and receive one-on-one input from the instructor throughout the workshop. Their appreciation and understanding of the value of creating artwork is deepened, and they come away with prints of their own, and also perhaps, of each others work.
Workshops can last two hours, all day, or as long as two weeks depending on the project and the interest of each group or individual…
Introducing children (of all ages) to relief printing is always fun! Using simple tools – ball point pens, paint and styrofoam plates – participants come away with prints and a new understanding of their own artistic abilities… and teachers learn a fun and relatively simple project that is easy to duplicate in the classroom.
… And we all enjoy getting our hands a little dirty!
If you are interested in private art lessons, a workshop for your group or school, or even a demonstration of relief printing… Please contact me at amanda@wanderartist.com. Will travel for Art!
