LEVEL: Pre-school and very Early Primary (5+)

A colourful and fun printmaking lesson for the classroom.
This great summertime outdoor art activity is ideal for good hot weather.

Tennis Ball Prints with School Paints
You will need the following:
: Paper
: Tempera Poster Paint with some shallow paint trays
: Tennis Balls – old ones are ideal.
: Apron, old shirts – plus paper towels.​

Let’s get started:
Before you start, ensure that painting surfaces are well-protected. It is a good idea to have children wear protective aprons or smocks.
- Supervision is also necessary as kids love to throw balls.
- Pour some paint into shallow trays – 3 or 4 colours should be enough.
- Dip the balls into the FAS Super Tempera paint. It is better not to over-wet the tennis balls. Try to avoid it being all too drippy. But sometimes, the drippy-ness adds to the final artwork.
- Dab or drop the tennis balls one at a time onto the blank paper.

Hang and allow to dry.

TIPS:  
- Sometimes, brushing paint onto the tennis ball gives you more control.
- Try to cover only one side of the tennis ball
- Use clean, bright colours.
- Don’t pour the used paint back into the bottles

Share and, enjoy & have fun.

[ FAS Super Tempera ]

#​Monoprinting #schoolpaints #SuperTempera #FASpaints

Learn how to Monoprint with schools paints.
Great colourful school art project using FAS Super Tempera.
Monoprint is a form of printmaking where the image can only be made once, unlike most printmaking which allows for multiple originals.

LEVEL: Pre-school and Primary.
This is a quick, colourful and easy project for the classroom. It is block printing in its simplest form using Tempera Poster Paint with fingers, and kids do love pushing paint around with their fingers.

Let's get started:
Monoprints are a simple and quick one-colour art form in that you cover a large area of the printing plate with Super Tempera Poster Paint. Your images are created by finger painting a basic design in the paint on the plate. Then gently place your paper over the design and lift it off.

Mono printing: Rolling out the tempera paint
1. Spread Tempera Paint evenly over your printing plate using a wide brush or roller. Making sure that it is slightly smaller than your paper. It is not essential to make it straight edged in fact, this will add to the final effect.

2. Using fingers, draw designs on the painted area. The more simple and more basic picture, the better. You are trying to remove the paint with your finger as you draw your design. If you are unhappy with the design, you can re-roll the area and start again.

3.  When you're happy with your design, lay the paper on top and cover the area with paint. Try to press on the painted area sparingly and keep the paper from moving around, as it will smudge your final design.  

4. Carefully peel the paper from the printing plate to reveal the mono-printed image. 

5. The printing plate can be reworked to be used again and again for the whole class.

6. Allow for drying.
 
Monoprinting Kids can make fun and interesting designs.


TIPS:  
- Keep it to one colour.
- Printing plate: needs to be a wipeable surface.
- Less is more. Try not to overdo the designs.
- Your designs will always come out in a reversed mirror image.
- Pressing hard on the paper while printing can turn your image into a blotchy mess.  
- The children decided to do fish with blue paint and flowers with red paint.

Share and, enjoy & have fun.

LEVEL: Primary to Artist.
There are two popular ways to paint fabrics. One is ready-made fabric printing ink, and the other is to use a medium with acrylic paint.  

Textile fabric painting ink.
This is a paint or ink that can be heat-set to a fabric to make it permanent, completely washable and dry cleanable. FAS Fastex is made exclusively for fabric material and offers real, lasting quality once heat-set correctly. See our video on heat setting. Other brands may differ.

Paints with a Textile Medium added.
You can mix a textile medium with acrylic paint to make it suitable for fabric. This can work reasonably well, but it is still a paint that has been redirected with medium to be applied to fabric. This method often does not layer well, so when it dries, you can feel rigid surface that will only get worse with more layers you paint. Often is not as durable as real fabric paints.

The Good from the Bad.
Once applied, a good fabric painting ink should not only look good with solid colours, but you should not be able to feel it on the fabric no matter how many layers you have printed. FAS Fastex Painting Ink layers well, and your artwork remains extremely durable when heat set correctly.

Application:
There are three main ways to use textile fabric ink. We are just looking at one today.
1. By brush
2. Simple stencil.
3. Screen print to a high definition.   
The golden rule is to paint thinly. Two thin coats are better than one thick coat. Heat-set by ironing the fabric once it is completely dry
 
Mesh Screen Printing 
Screen Printing with Textile Ink
Screen Printing gives strong, sharp and clean colours. It allows the artist to have complete control of the finished artwork.

1. Place the fabric under the screen. Making sure it is flat with no wrinkles.
2. Put a small amount of Fastex Textile Ink above the design inside the screen.
3. Use a squeegee to evenly drag the ink evenly across the design inside the screen.
4. Gently lift the screen off your fabric and allow the to dry.
Finished design in high definition. NB: note the TM 
5. Once dry, iron the fabric at a good hot setting. See our video below.

TIPS:  
- Less is more. Try not to paint too thick.
- You may need to clean between colours but more often than you can do a run of fabric prints this way.
- Make sure your artwork is completely dry before you iron.