A Fabulous Trip!

Yesterday we had a fantastic day at Dulwich Picture Gallery! We spent the morning with an artist called Jo, who taught us all about M.C. Escher. Jo told us about Escher's interest in Arabic tile prints, particularly inspired by the tiles of the Alhambra Palace in Spain. We learned that Escher used tessellations and metamorphosis to create some of his artwork.

We made some beautiful prints of our own, in the style of Escher.

We began by drawing our design onto a polystyrene tile, then had to use a biro to press hard and make grooves in the tile.

Next, we used rollers to roll out the printing ink onto a plate. We used the roller to transfer the ink from the plate onto our tiles;

Then we collaged some coloured paper and carefully lined it up with our tile.

The next step was to use the printing press, which was lots of fun!

Finally, we peeled the paper off the tiles to see our completed prints! They were beautiful!

In the afternoon, we were very lucky to be given a guided tour of the special M.C. Escher exhibition and to have the opportunity to discuss some of the other paintings from the gallery's main collection.

After half term, our prints will be put together to make one big Escher-inspired piece of art, which will be proudly on display in our classroom. Come and take a look soon!