Thursday, January 17, 2013

Terracotta Army printed wit foam


Still about China, what better way to reproduce the huge Terracotta Army of  Xi’an, except through a printing technique? We used the most simple and cheap:
- foam engraved with a sharp pencil
- acrylic paint applied with a flat brush
- printing on colored card with hand pressure
Every student could prepare one soldier and print it 5-6 times.. so your Army shall be massive!



engrave with a sharp pencil

cut the soldier


paint with acrylic colour on the matrix

print on a cardboard wit gently hand pressure
be careful to put pressure on the whole figure


use different type of cardboards 


here is our Army!


16 comments:

  1. I was aware of this technique, and I really like the 'topic' you chose...

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    1. thank you Silvia! It's very easy to do, even at home with little children!

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  2. Very impressive! The terracotta army looks great overlapped using different papers!

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    1. I thought to the rows of terracotta soldiers... everyone is different!

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  3. What a terrific way to explore printing. I love the way the figures overlap and extend off the background paper!!

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    1. If you have some different ideas about the background, tell me!! I'm thinking about the ranks of soldiers...

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  4. Great subject! These turned out so great. How old were the kids who did these? Are these their samples or yours. I'll need to do some research on China!

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    1. Hi Patty! they are 11 years old. One of the soldier is my sample, the others are of children... I'm doing that with small groups, when I have more pictures I'll show you!

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    2. Thanks, Miriam. I think my sixth grade boys (11-12 years olds) would LOVE this project. I mean, who doesn't love warriors?

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  5. These are wonderful!A great way to explore art history and printmaking :)

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  6. Lovely job Miriam! These also remind me of brass rubbings, with the metallic images on black paper, and all of the detail. Did you have trouble with the acrylic paint drying before the entire image was ready to print?

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    1. Hi Renèe! The image is around 16 cm height, so, if you use acrylic paint no too dry will be ok! The better way is to use a big flat paintbrush (bigger than in my sample), so you can cover the surface quickly and print it at once... try!
      tell me about your result!

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  7. Hi Miriam
    This technique would be a great way to create a big group art project. I can imagine rows of Wayne Thiebaud-inspired cakes. Thanks for posting!

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  8. These are so much better then the ones we did earlier this year. It's fun to know that a simular exhibit is by you and by me... both so far apart. I will be pinning this for sure... nice work!

    http://minimatisse.blogspot.com/2012/10/grid-project-of-terracotta-warriors.html

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    1. I saw your post about terracotta army and grid project last October... I remember that! I thought about printing just to do a massive army on the wall with lots of soldiers... as great as in Xi'an! Thank for your post!

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