Kristina's Craft Corner: Vegetable Printmaking

Kristina’s Craft Corner: Vegetable Printmaking

If you have a potato, a paperclip, and paint, you can make a print! (Who knew art could be so alliterative?) Bonus project in the text below!

Materials:

Directions:

Potato Print

If desired, sketch out your design ahead of time.
Think about what parts of your design will get paint. Anything you carve away will be white, anything still there will get color.
- TIP: Avoid words if possible. Words have to be carved backwards in order to print forwards
Cut the potato in half. Parents, use a sharp knife so that the cut edge is smooth
Using a pencil, press your design into the potato
Using the paper clip, scoop and carve away the parts of the potato you don’t want to print. Sometimes it helps to use the end to poke holes along the edge of your design
- Remember to rip away the edge of the peel too.
Dry with paper towel
Use paintbrush to apply paint to the raised part of the potato
Press onto paper, hold for about 3 seconds
Continue until your paper is as full as you’d like!

BONUS PROJECT: Celery Print

Cut the base of a celery bunch roughly 3” from the bottom
If you have loose stalks, arrange in a bunch
Secure stalks together with rubber band or hair ties
Dab ends dry on a paper towel
Dip in paint
- Less is more with the paint. Too much and you’ll lose the definition. Stamp excess off on a piece of scratch paper before printing
Print on paper, hold for roughly 3 seconds
Repeat until your paper is as full as you’d like!

All done! Did you make this project? Share with us on social media, or email Kristina with your creations!

Special thank you to Curran Sukowatey for editing this and all the other Craft Corner videos!