Projects and Class Information Links:
Georgia O'Keefe Flower Painting
The
Totem Block Print is a beginning exercise
in block printing, a type of relief print that uses a soft rubbery
material to create a print block that can be used to print multiple
editions.
Students study the totem carving traditions of the Pacific Northwest
Coastal Native American peoples, and create individual blocks representing
various spirits and animals from the legends of these richly diverse
tribal cultures. They learn how totem poles are carved and the important
role they play in transmitting the stories of the tribe's ancestry
and history. They combine their images at each table to create a vertical
totem design, and use this design as the basis to write a fictional
legend having to do with Nature.
.