LEGO Printmaking

Brian brought the LEGO press he made to Quelab to make a few LEGO prints:

The LEGO press

has moving parts

The LEGO press

fit in the palms of Brian's hands

Making LEGO prints

The LEGO set-up

Brian used smaller LEGO dots to make designs on the bigger LEGO plate:

Smaller LEGO dot pieces

were used to make the images

We made some nice two-colored prints:

Multi-colored LEGO prints

from passes with two different colors

Making the image

with smaller LEGO dot bits

We printed this abstract image

The PROCESS

Brian brought Speedball water-based inks to print with:

Brian brought these water-based inks

to print with

Rolling ink on glass

with an anti-skid mesh below

Inking the LEGO plate

Unlike when we use the Tortilla Press, the paper goes underneath the plate in this LEGO press.  Thus Brian turned the press upside down to insert the plate:

Inserting the plate

(when the press was upside down)

Then Brian turned the press over, the right way, and inserted the paper:

Inserting the cardstock paper strip

An extra push with his hand made better prints:

While the levers pressed down,

and extra push helped make better prints

The first print and press

The PRINTS:

The ink would dry

making prints of various densities

We also printed with other colors

The Dollar Tree sold 5x5 inch fake LEGO plates, which we could use to print on our other presses -- including the ABUSA Adjustable Tortilla Press:

5x5 inch fake gray LEGO plate

from Dollar Tree

The regular LEGO bits

snapped onto the fake LEGO plate

• Roy Scholten is making interesting relief prints with the LEGO press
• Maybe we can 3D print our own LEGO compatible bits, say in custom shapes

• Laser cutting LEGOS

• LEGO ART program