By Mrs. T. Tarn, Junior School Art Teacher

Last week, the grade 7 art class had the privilege of participating in a printmaking workshop led by special guest artist, Ms. Heather Aston. She is a full-time artist who works out of the Malaspina Printmakers Studio on Granville Island where she produces her monotypes, etchings and relief prints.

The students learned how to use watercolour paints and crayons on Plexiglas plates to create images of a garden. After the paint on the plate was dried, the students ran it through a printmaking press along with dampened specialty paper to form a unique one-of-a-kind print. This process is called “monotype” printmaking, in which all the paint transfers to the paper so it is not possible to make more than one print, hence the prefix “mono”. It was a wonderful way to learn a new method of creating artwork!