Collagraph Prints

I love printmaking and thought that collagraphs would be a good technique to try with my regular group of adults with learning difficulties.
We began by drawing an oval face-shape on card and cutting it out. In most cases the carer had to do the cutting. In my class all of the participants have a carer with them.
After they cut out the face shape, they drew simple eyes, noses and mouths on card, cut them out and glued them on to the face. Make sure you use decent paper glue and leave time for it to dry or else you will have eyes and noses sticking to the ink roller later!
I prepared a printing table with two colours of ink and got the participants to come up one at a time to make their print. If you have a large class it's a good idea to provide an extra activity for them to do while they are waiting. I usually have around 6 in my class but on the day of this activity I had 12 which meant there was a lot more waiting around than I would have liked.
I got them to ink up the face in one colour, place it face down on the paper and then go over the top with another colour which gives quite a nice 'arty' effect. All the participants really enjoyed using the ink roller. Even those who have trouble controlling a paintbrush seemed to find it really easy which made me think that printmaking is definitely a good activity for this group.
They all got a kick out of peeling off the card to reveal the face underneath even if some of the faces turned out a little scary looking!