Children's Print & Bookbinding Workshop

The week before Gill and Bern arrived I ran a children's printmaking and bookbinding workshop in Hofsós.  It ran over 2 days with 15 children participating in the Sumar tím activities.  The first part of the day was a handball workshop (with other presenters...not me...in case you were thinking anything different) which was quite good as it allowed the children to burn off a little steam before settling down to more quiet concentrated work.  After they had a morning tea break it was my turn and I introduced the children to monoprinting and set them creating several drawings for what would eventually be their bookcovers.

 

The children were a variety of ages from 5 to about 11-12years....although there were definitely more in the younger age group.  They were speedy in their creations...very spontaneous...they worked faster than I had expected and I was grateful that I had prepared extra paper for those that worked at a breakneck speed (I am one of those people that always over caters for the just in case moment).

 

 The children ended up with ooddles of prints to choose from for their covers

I was amazed at the concentration level of some of the very young ones, who only opened their mouth to ask for more paper.

 

After they had finished printing

they then experimented with frottage, producing rubbings from a range of objects 

 

and created a few images for inside their book.

Day 2

After the hand ball session and morning tea the remainder of the morning was all about making the books. Even though I had everything pre cut and prepared with holes for the binding, this session was still pretty labour intensive and as the children were quite young a fair bit of supervision was required to make sure that all steps were followed correctly.  The Japanese stab binding was a little bit of a challenge for some but eventually they all got there and everyone went home with a finished book.

 Once the construction process was over the children set about adding a bit of colour to their bookcovers with pencils.

There are no photos of the construction process as we were all far too busy to stop and take any pics, however we do have a few of some of the children and their completed books. 

              

               

                

Although at times I think some children thought they would never finish as there were so many steps before the end result (there is no such thing as instant gratification in Printmaking)...in the end I think they were all really pleased with what they had achieved over the 2 days.

I am so grateful to the keen helpers I had for the duration of the workshop.  Margret (from the Sumar tím team) who translated my instructions for the children (although many spoke excellent English), the gorgeous Kasia from Poland (Artist/Photographer/Filmmaker) who besides being fantastic with children also kindly took these photographs over the 2 days (as I was too busy to even get my camera out of my bag) and Vedis (the local art teacher) who knew all the children and worked tirelessly helping them to achieve their fantastic results, without their assistance the workshop would not have been such a success.