Let's Draw

The Wisconsin School of Air presents its fun in art series "Let's Draw on Television."

This is an experimental series in the teaching of creative art through television.

Your TV art teacher is James A. Schwalbach, extension specialist in art and design of the University College of Agriculture.

And now here's Mr. Schwalbach.

Let's go over here and look a little bit at the materials we're going to use in the supply.

Before we get into that, there's one thing I'd like to tell you.

And that's a little bit of direction.

When we start out today, I'd like to have you just watch the broadcast, see what we're doing here, and then take any notes you wish.

And after we're all through, then you'll be all set for your fun in pressing the pattern.

Now I think we're ready to talk about the material.

There's quite a few of them, but they're easy to get.

Let's start out, first of all, with cloth to print on.

You could print on paper if you wish.

But cloth works nicest of all.

You'll really need a good piece of cloth for your print and a practice piece.

In addition for printing, you're going to need your watercolors, ordinary school watercolors, or your poster paint.

And best of all, if you have it, some printer zing or oil paint.

If you're using your printer zing or oil paint, you're going to need a piece of glass or a metal plate to form the ink plate.

And a roller to roll it out in.

Any smaller roller to do.

We'll do.

If you're using paint, you're going to need some paper tolling, for an ink pad, to soak the paint on.

Then to print with odds of ends of all sorts, just a big box of junk, really.

Anything that you can pick up from everywhere.

And I hope you have lots of it there all set to go.

Now printing is a little bit messy.

So you're going to need some old newspapers to protect your desk and some old rags to clean your hands.

And it wouldn't be a bad idea to protect yourself to have an apron or a smart, or you might even make one from a piece of newspaper.

We're going to need something to sort of set our pattern on the claw.

And for that, a pencil and a ruler to draw some lines so you know where the printer mclaw will do.

Now that sounds like an awful lot of material, but it really is not very much in material that you have with you ready to go all the time.

Alright, I think let's start out with step number one, selecting the objects.

Now I have here on the table quite a few different objects that I picked from.

I have here for example a stone I picked up.

The stone might make an interesting print, but in looking at it, I think it's a little bit uneven.

So one thing you want to be careful of is to be sure that the object you print with is nice and even to work with.

Here is a figure.

I think that would make a nice print.

We could print it and print it down very easily.

But I think I'm going to try something else.

It looks a little bit large for the claw I'm working on.

I'd like to start out with this ordinary triple electric socket.

You have some of those at home.

And that's a kind of a nice shape.

And going with that is another little electrical plug.

I'm going to use the back of it.

That has a kind of a zigzag shape to it.

I think we'll go very nicely with this because the first place is a little bit smaller than this.

And to go along with that, a third object is fourth, which you saw me using at the beginning.

Ordinary dinner for us that I think will make some nice lines on the print.

Now we've selected our three objects.

The next step that we're going to do is to go over and prepare our ink pad.

Most of you, I suspect, using the folded paper, ordinary paper tolly, new print will work too folded until you have several thicknesses of the paper.

Fold it up, place it on the table and take your jar of ink will work too.

Our ordinary paint dipped the brush into that paint.

And let's just job a lot of that.

We might even pour some of it right on the paper so you get a good thickness of paint that the paper will absorb it.

And that's all there is to making the ink pad if you're using the paint.

Now if you are lucky enough to have printer things or oil paint, you can just take it and squeeze some of it out.

Now I have another little bit for telly I'm going to use this other tube here.

Put a little bit right out on the plate.

Take your roller, roll it out, pick the roller up each time roll back and forth several times this way.

And then come back and forth the other way so that the ink is very evenly spread on the plate.

Very easy thing to do.

So now we have our ink place already to do either a plate or an ink pad.

Going on step number three, the inking of the object itself.

Here we take as we used our fork before and press the fork down on the ink pad very carefully.

Bring it over here and press carefully and firmly on the claw.

Making your pattern.

If the pattern smears, you're either moving your hand or you're using too much ink.

Let's print our electric plug here.

Pressing that in, putting it down carefully, giving our hand on a wooden hard, pressing down and pulling it off again seeing the pattern of that print.

Now for those of you who happen to have the printer thing and the ink roller, let's print the last socket with that.

Taking our ink roller again, moving it back and forth, picking up our plug, rolling on it back and forth in several directions in that manner, and pressing it just like we did before.

Placing it down, pushing on it very hard, and pulling it up carefully when we have the print.

And there we have our three objects we're going to print with.

Now, we're ready for the next step.

And that is arranging the pattern or deciding what sort of pattern we're going to do.

Now on any set of objects you use, you not only have a choice of objects, but you have a choice of arranging them.

I have printed on this claw several different ways of just arranging these three patterns.

Here's one arrangement here, one possible way of putting those three objects together.

Coming over here, we have a second possible way, you can see it's slightly different from the first.

Coming up here to this corner, I've arranged them again, a third way, and by just looking down you can see that that's slightly different again.

Coming over here to a fourth possible arrangement.

This is what you have your scrap piece of cloth for.

Now for our final print, I looked over these four arrangements and I picked this one down here as the one that I like best of all, and so that's the one I'm going to print on my final print.

And so now we're all set then for step number five.

And that is printing the actual object, and that's what I was doing when I started.

On this piece of cloth, I already have printed the light socket, the chiple outlet, those two have been printed, and I'm now finishing up the print by taking my fork, pressing it on the ink pad, and coming in here, and printing one there, and over here again to the pad, and then be careful to return to the ink pad each time in your print, that's in firmly and slowly.

Again you see how the pattern has been made for our finished product.

Now we haven't time to finish this, but before the broadcast I made one all set, and you can see it here, but this nice base setting on it, we finished pattern, and we made here with our three objects.

Now there are many, many different things you can use and make for this, and we have a few of your samples that you might like to see.

For example, you can print the border just down each side of the cloth, you don't have to have it the way I had it, and here is one made of chicken, that's chicken cookie cutter, a large chicken, here, small one over here, printed very quickly and very easily done.

You can see that quite easily there, here, and down and here on each side.

If you have any old cans in your junk, here we have a all over design, a pattern all over the cloth, made by printing again just a simple square or rectangular bottom of a can, press and ink and print it once this way, and once the opposite way.

Finally, down here again, we can use vegetables, potatoes, carrots, and here I've taken an onion, cut an onion in half so we get the texture of the onion, and printed that onion.

Here all these round spots are the prints of the onion, you can see how the various rings of the onion show.

In between that, I've taken a char boy, put it in the paint or the ink, pressed it to give a little different texture in between the onion marks.

Here's another one where we made a border completely around the object.

That's another way of doing this, all sorts of ways of doing this on the cloth.

Here I use the catch of a door, an old cabinet door, right up and here, and you can see it printed down in here.

Then on this section over here, I use a sponge rubbery racer.

Now here is a little different because in the surface of the racer you can see a g's design cut.

You may want to cut your initials or a pattern in a racer or a carrot or potato too.

Press that on the ink and you can see how the print was made up here.

Finally you can take some objects that are quite flimsy and might fall apart in printing and like this clothesline we have here.

I've taken the clothesline and molded it, just cemented it with ordinary household cement on a piece of wood.

Then inked it and overlapped it as I printed.

You can overlap these things too.

And made this sort of border in here for an all over pattern.

Then in between here we have another little object that may surprise you.

I took a knob off one of my doors at home.

And right here at the end of it and a small end is a little bit of a hole there.

You can see that and that's printed right up in here to make a variation in the pattern.

The large and the small.

That's all the importance.

Now we've gone over that, we've had a lot of fun doing it.

Suppose we just review these steps quickly so we'll be all set to go when we get to our own work and ready to go.

Step number one, selecting the object.

Almost any object can be used for pressing a pattern.

The best objects to use are those which when ink produce an interesting pattern.

Don't use too many different objects.

Select only a few.

Objects of different size work together a little easier.

Step number two, preparing the ink pad.

Start out by folding several thicknesses of newspaper to form the pad.

Ink can be smoothed out on a pad with a brush or a small stick.

If you have an ink roller like this the ink can be rolled out on a metal or a glass plate.

Roll back and forth several times to be sure the ink is spread evenly.

Be careful not to use too much ink whichever means you use.

Printer's ink is best but oil paints, textual paint and even your watercolor or poster paints will work.

Step number three, inking the object.

All the object in your hand and press it firmly and carefully on the ink pad.

If you're using an ink roller roll the ink on the object carefully and evenly.

In either case avoid using too much ink.

Step number four, printing the object.

Press the object firmly and carefully on a scrap of paper or cloth to see how it prints.

Pad the table with several layers of newspaper to form a good printing surface.

If the print smears either you've used too much ink or you permitted your stamp object to move as you used it.

If the print is uneven or grey, either you did not press hard enough or you did not use enough ink.

Be careful about getting your inky fingers on the printed cloth.

Re-ink your object each time you use it.

Step number five, working out the pattern.

Try out several different combinations of objects until you get a pattern you like.

Do this on a scrap of cloth or sheet of paper.

Then decide where you want to place the prints on whatever you plan to make.

You're then ready to begin.

Now about those finished objects, just as Mr. Schwabbach has done, you can use all sorts of different objects to make your prints.

It all depends on what you can find around you.

That's how it's done, boys and girls, easy, isn't it?

I know you'll have lots of fun.

I had a lot of fun doing this.

Now let's get out all those objects that junk you have, your ink, your watercolor paints, your rollers, your brushes, and your cloth.

And get those best results, too, because now you're all set to press the pattern.

This has been an experimental program in the teaching of Creative Art to Television.

Your T.V.R.

teacher has been James Schwabbach, extension specialist in art and design of the University College of Agriculture.

Comments and samples of the work produced are both appreciated.

Send them to Let's Draw, W.H.A.

TV, 600 North Park Street, Madison, Sex, Wisconsin.

That address is Madison, Sex, Wisconsin.

Send us your comments and samples of your work.

Next Friday morning at 10 o'clock, the Wisconsin School of the Air will bring you another Let's Draw TV, all about people and wax crayons.

See you then.

If you wish the teacher's guide for these programs, send your request to Let's Draw, W.H.A.

TV, 600 North Park Street, Madison, Sex, Wisconsin.

This is the Wisconsin School of the Air.

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