LET’S MAKE A VEGETABLE PRINT!

An Art Activity Linked to Rainbow Shopping

*This picture was printed completely with garlic, an important ingredient in Chinese cooking!*

In Rainbow Shopping, a little girl and her mom go grocery shopping in Chinatown, where there are lots of interesting fruits and vegetables.

You can make prints using any hard vegetable. Printing is when you create a picture by pressing an inked design onto a surface, like a stamp!

Materials

1. A hard vegetable to print with. We will use garlic in our example!

2. A sharp knife to cut the vegetable (ask an adult for help!)

3. Ink pad OR you can use paint brush and paint

4. Paper to print on

Step1

With an adult’s help, cut a garlic in half neatly. You can try cutting garlic in different ways to get the shape you want.

Step 2

Put the garlic flat side down onto the inking pad OR if you are using paint, apply paint thinly all over the flat side of the garlic. Press the inked side of the garlic down onto the paper.

STEP 3

Try making a picture, it can be abstract, a pattern or whatever you imagine!

Tip: having trouble printing? Add a flat layer of fabric or paper towel beneath the paper. This will provide a cushioned surface for easier printing!

Other vegetables to try:

Celery, potato, onion, okra, carrot, lotus root!