Potato Printing

potatoes, paper, Speedball water soluble printmaking ink, brayer, surface to roll in on (plexi-glass, plastic plate)

1. cut potatoes into desired shapes (an adult should do this)
2. roll ink onto plexi-glass
3. did potato in ink like a stamp
4. stamp away!

Here are three examples of this art lesson.  The first is just potatoes, with lots of different colors available to the children.  I cut the potatoes into stars, circles, triangles, rectangles, and stripes.  I encouraged them to layer their stamping with a lighter colored circle (i.e. yellow) under a darker/brighter shape.

The second incorporates a children’s book, When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano.  (cutest book about the seasons ever!)  For this one, I added store-bought stamps for the flowers (you could carve them with potato though!).

And the third variation uses a combination of potatoes and Speedball’s Speedy-Cut blocks.  The children drew their stamp shapes with sharpie, and I carved around them.  This would be an awesome project for older kids who could carve safely.  For the moon and stars print, the shooting star is made with the help of two stripes carved from a potato plus one round potato!