5 Wonderful Themes to use in your Elementary Printmaking Lessons

March 8, 2025 by Jenn

Table of Contents

There are so many ways to expose your students to the wonderful world of printmaking.

Lino cuts and foam printing plates are my go to processes in my printmaking lessons. On the other hand, there are so many approaches and materials that your students will enjoy. Examples include: gelli plates, relief plates (with cardboard, foam, yarn etc) and mono printing with plexiglass.

Here are the foam printing plates and the Soft-Kut printing blocks that I like to use on Blick’s website. I’m not affiliated with them, but I’ve had great luck with these particular materials.

Themes that I have had success with in my printmaking lessons:

Animals-As inspiration, we take a peek at Andy Warhol’s colorful and texture packed animal screen prints. Here is a great opportunity to make use of the reduction process of linoleum printmaking. This enables the students to create colorful layers in their work. They are also able to create a lot of animal textures and markings with the various linoleum cutter blade sizes. I usually stick to two layers, but you can get more advanced if it suits your students.

Linoleum Print of a gold and red crocodile

Portrait/ text combinations-I have always loved Barbara Kruger’s bold imagery infused with text. She creates such striking images all within a minimal color palette. My students completed a printed self portrait with text. We focused on how a facial expression, in addition to a personal phrase, could convey emotion or represent something about themselves. The portraits were completed with linoleum where the text was completed with foam printing plates.

Self Portrait Completed with the linoleum Printmaking process.

Bugs and insects-If I don’t have an artist in mind for a lesson, I always tie in a piece of literature or another subject such as science. Two book ideas include “The Grouchy Ladybug” by Eric Carle and “Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!” by Bob Barner. You could also focus on exposing them to different facts about bugs and insects. Another idea is to use either bug figurines or printouts and do a texture study with magnifying glasses. My students were able to draw such fun representations of a bug or insect that they found interesting. I also provided these bug idea handouts (TPT), to help them get started with their drawings

Favorite foods-How can you resist the food themed artwork of Wayne Thiebaud!?The students are always delighted to experience his frosting-like paint application in his food themed paintings. This always seems to be a student favorite when it comes to Printmaking lessons. For their prints, they can choose either their favorite food or a food that reminds them of a special occasion or tradition. It’s also a great way to discuss family traditions and how foods come into play. It’s fun to have students volunteer to tell the class what foods are important within their own families. You never know what connections will be made in between students. Here’s my dessert handout if you need ideas for your students.

Architecture/cityscapes– The great thing about using foam for your printing plate surface is that you can cut it into different shapes. This lends itself well to creating building shapes for a cityscape or architecture lesson. A fun spin on this is to represent a Chinese new year parade with a cityscape background, complete with the serpent-like dragon itself. Overall, this lesson takes a fun mixed media collage approach rather than what you typically see for traditional printmaking.

Foam printing plates to create buildings for a cityscape.

If you like this post, you may like my post about how to use idea starters in your classroom. I provide these type of handouts with most of my lessons, including Printmaking lessons, to jump start student ideas.

Enter your name and email below if you would like a free Doodle ideas handout! I’ll also keep you informed of new elementary art themed posts.