Designing Wallpaper: Natural and Personal Motif Making with Stamps and Stencils

Two Day High School Lesson Plan taught at Kelvyn Park High School in CPS

High school students, over the course of two class periods, will design a “roll” of wallpaper with a motif made from natural and personal symbols. They will be introduced to the unit with Edgar Miller’s prints, Mexican papel picado, Faheem Majeed’s wallpapering of Dr. Margaret Burroughs’s Black Venus linocut, William Morris’s wallpaper designs made with woodblocks during the Arts and Craft Movement, and the nature-representative and patterned appliqué Molas of the Guna people of Panama. On the first day, students will brainstorm their motifs and have the choice to make their wallpaper from the options of a stencil or a foam stamp. They will fabricate their stencils and stamps by the end of the first class period. On the second day, students will view a demonstration on how to use paint with their stencil and how to print their foam stamp with a brayer, ink, and a barren. They will make an individual roll of wallpaper with the repeated use of their stamps or stencils, as well as adding to a collective class or group wallpaper roll. Once they all finish, we will have a group discussion about their collaboration and they will have a personal self reflection worksheet to complete.