Mixed Media Patterns

I found this project on the Artsonia website years ago. If someone wants to take credit for creating it - please let me know. It's one of my favorite!WEEK 1. Give the students a 6" x 9" piece of printing foam and a wooden stylus. They are to draw two horizontal lines to divide the foam into three 6" x 3" sections. Illustrate on a board some examples of patterns that can be made with lines: stars, circles, squares, etc. The students are to draw with a stylus a different pattern in each section. Encourage them to make some shapes go off the edge of the foam.
2. Students work with 9" x 12" black construction paper, white ink and brayers. Demonstrate how to make a print by rolling the foam with white ink, and then pressing it to the center of the black paper. There should be an even black border all around the print. The students may need to practice with several prints.
WEEK 2. Each student use their best (most evenly covered) print, and a black oil pastel. They continue their horizontal lines onto the border of the black paper. In the new sections they have now made on the border, they continue drawing the printed shapes, pressing firmly with the pastel. After all the printing shapes have been drawn in black in the border, they use a variety of oil pastels to color in and around the border.