Student at Norwell DSS learns patience while creating linocut art piece
March 16, 2021
PALMERSTON, Ontario – Over a year ago, students in the KALAN Life Skills class at Norwell District Secondary School began a fun art project, which they were unable to finish due to the COVID-19 school closures.
In February 2020, with a small group of Life Skills students, educator Karen Huband set out to design and create a set of retro greeting cards. Designs for these cards included a Volkswagen van, a rotary phone, Pac-Man arcade game, 70s muscle car, pop bottle cap and more.
Deciding to work with ridged lino rather than other forms of art, students collected material and modified their images to suit the high contrast design required for linocut printmaking. Students worked on everything from design to carving out all the white areas of the design.
The project was 75 percent complete when the class was forced to shutdown due to COVID-19. When the current school year started, some students in the class had graduated, some had moved to remote learning and Huband was no longer teaching this section.
A year later, Huband popped by the art class to see what they were working on and to her surprise, one student pulled out his completed linocut block and asked if they could work on printing it!
Perseverance and patience allowed Norwell student John to complete this piece, while allowing another group of students to learn the basic print process.
Huband said she is very proud of their work, “and of John for persevering and for recognizing an opportunity when it presents itself.”
Great job, John, we can’t wait to see what your art class produces next.
