Janyla Holsur, senior, is excited to start her weaving project this week. Holsur is one of many students taking the new Fibers and Printmaking class, offered this year. 

 Although Fibers and Printmaking requires basic art skills to sketch a design, it is unlike any of the other classes.

Holsur said hooking looms are used in the course along with woodcarving and plaster. She has made paracord bracelets and a tote bag with screen printing.

“I’m really proud of my wood carving project,” said Holsur.

Holsur said she has taken several art classes including Art Fundamentals, Drawing, Painting, and 3D Art, but she has learned new things with this course. 

She would recommend this class to other students because the school doesn’t have a course similar to it, allowing students to try something new.

The class helps teach time management and patience, Holsur said.

“You have to wait for things to dry,” Holsur said, “It will take a whole class and then you have to wait until the next class so you can start working on it again.”

Melissa Wilson decided to teach Fibers and Printmaking after meeting with art teachers in the district and rewrote the curriculum.

“Printmaking and fiber were kind of missing from the curriculum, so we put them together and made a new class,” Wilson said.

So far the class has done printmaking techniques, macrame, silk screening and is just now starting a weaving unit. Students are using tabletop looms, which are new to the art rooms, for their unit project.

Wilson is allowing students to pick either printing or weaving for the final course project.

Mirenda Linenbroker, senior, said her favorite part of Fibers and Printmaking is the many different techniques of printing. This year they have made their own stamps, and have silk-printed tote bags and shirts.

“I like it because I took painting, and I think it’s easier than that,” Linenbroker said. “But it’s also fun because it’s something we’ve never done before.”

Ava Nordman, junior, is taking the class after receiving a recommendation from their counselor. Nordman’s favorite project was the intaglio project. They scratched a design into plastic, pushed ink into it and pressed it onto paper. 

“The class is much more experimental compared to other classes,“ Nordman said. “You can do a lot more of what you want to do than just what the prompt says.