This is a form of relief printing which makes use of readily available styrofoam meat and vegetable trays.
By Andrea Mulder-Slater
What You Need:
- Paint or ink.
- Styrofoam meat trays.
- Scissors.
- Pencils.
- Paper.
- Soft rubber brayers (printing rollers that can be found at art supply stores). You can substitute small paint rollers, or a spoon if rollers aren’t readily available.
- An old cookie tray or a piece of plexiglass to roll the ink out on.
What You Do:
First cut the edges off of the trays so that you have a flat surface to work on.
Next, draw an image onto the tray using a pencil.
Remember, your printed image will appear in reverse!
Follow the printing with a brayer directions. (Click for instructions).
You could instead use a paintbrush to cover over the styrofoam with paint or ink, lay the paper over top, press lightly and voila.
Repeat until you have an edition of prints.
One step further:
- Instead of drawing into the styrofoam, you could press down areas you don’t want printed.
- You could also cut out sections of the styrofoam, ink them up separately, pop the pieces back together and print.
- Substitute corrugated cardboard for styrofoam.
- Use a carpenter’s nail to scratch out designs on the cardboard.
