Polystyrene tile relief printing
During my time teaching A level art students I used polystyrene (sometimes called styrofoam) tile printing quite a lot as an easy and affordable introduction to printmaking. Although most people associate them with preschool art classes and printing from pizza bases I find them a great way to introduce the concept of relief printing and layering. Relief printing is where the surface is inked and printed from and anything that is cut away or pushed down from the surface doesn’t print because ink doesn’t touch it when the roller is rolling over the surface. Any incised lines, marks or shapes which are pushed down will show as white - or the paper colour you’re printing on.
With teaching lino printing in college I had to factor in several lessons of planning and sometimes unsuccessful cutting (basic red lino cutters + frustrated teenagers are never a good combination) only to find students can lose interest in their design once printed if it doesn’t turn out great first time. Polytiles are affordable enough to allow students to create several tiles and experiment with simple layering in different combinations particularly if using geometric and pattern based designs. Registering multiple tiles – using face down registration – simply stick the second tile face down onto the first print, flip the paper and tile over carefully and burnish the back of the paper to transfer ink to paper.
DOWNLOADABLE STEP BY STEP POLYSTYRENE PRINTING INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE
Layering prints helps develop an understanding of colour mixing and plates can be cut into shapes with a guillotine, sharp scalpel or scissors. I’ve done successful workshops with students from age 6 up to 18 and it’s often a good warm up exercise before a more in depth printmaking project with school children.