The Museum of Russian Art

Learn the basics of printmaking by creating your own colorful patterned print inspired by the rich designs on the textiles and tools in the exhibition. 

Engagement: Design Your Own Patterned Print

Take a virtual trip through the exhibition "Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost." 

Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Learning: Virtual Gallery

This display case holds a variety of tools used in different parts of the textile process. Click on the blue dots to find out more about each tool!  Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Learning: Virtual Display: Tools, Tools, Tools

"Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost" combines objects, images, videos, scenes, and text to communicate aspects of life in the Russian North during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Imagine that YOU are tasked with creating an exhibition to show what life is like for you today. What objects would you include? What scenes would you create? What would you want visitors to take away? Use this planning worksheet to design your exhibition. Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Engagement: Design a Museum Exhibition

What do you think this object might do? The objects on display here are tools, which means they have a specific function. What function could they have? What do you see that makes you guess that? After you've thought about what purpose these objects might have, click through to learn more about them! Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Learning: What's this mysterious object? 

In this slideshow, you'll analyze the symbols you see on objects in the exhibition "Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost." Next, you can visit the activity "Design a Personal Symbol" to create a symbol of your own! 

Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Learning: Exploring Symbols 

After completing all of the previous activities in the resource kit, test your knowledge as you try to escape the room! To unlock the room, you'll need a special secret code word. Each time you correctly answer a question, you'll receive one letter of the code word. Once you've answered all the questions, click on the door handle. Unscramble the letters to escape the room! 

Bonus Engagement: Escape Room

After viewing the slideshow activity titled "Exploring Symbols," design a symbol of your own. You might choose to use this symbol as part of your pattern in the printmaking activity (titled "Design Your Own Patterned Print"). 

Engagement: Design a Personal Symbol

Learn about the culture and history of Russian people of the past by analyzing artwork, crafts, tools, and other regional artifacts. Take a virtual gallery tour of The Museum of Russian Art's exhibition, "Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost." Then, look closely at objects from the exhibition to consider what they can teach us about the people who made and used them. This exhibition showcases items from the Russian North in the 19th and early 20th centuries prior to the Soviet government's establishment of collective farms that largely destroyed traditional Russian peasant culture. The richly decorated objects, including textiles, work tools, and furniture, represent traditional, sustainable production techniques and show designs and symbols with origins tracing back over a thousand years. Through an appreciation of the artistry of the past, we can come to understand a complex culture while also making connections to our own daily lives.

Arts, Crafts, Tools, and Symbols: Learn with The Museum of Russian Art

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In Old Russia, there were a number of different techniques for creating patterns and designs on flax linen textiles, including weaving, embroidering, and printing. We are going to focus on this last technique: printing. 

To print a pattern a textile, the method would usually be "block printing" or "roller printing." "Block printing" basically means carving a design into a wooden block, putting a dye onto the block, and stamping the block onto fabric. "Roller printing" involves engraving a design onto a roller rather than a block. The color of dye chosen would generally be different from the color of the fabric to ensure the design would show up. 

We won't be carving wooden blocks today (too dangerous!), so our method will be a little different. We will be using foam or rubber printing blocks (examples shown will be foam). We will be carving our design into the foam or rubber blocks, and stamping them on cardstock to print. 

First, make sure you have all of your materials. Here's what you'll need: 

-cardstock (of a different color than the paint)

Let's decide what your print will look like. Use your pencil and scrap paper to sketch possible designs. You might want to look at books or websites for inspiration. Folk patterns often include flowers, lines, or geometric shapes like circles, squares, and triangles-- but you can incorporate whatever images you'd like! (If you've already done the Symbol activity, you could create a print using the symbol you created!) Keep in mind that your design will print as a mirror image, so you may not want to use text (you'd have to write it backwards!). 

Once you are happy with your design, use your pencil to press the design into your foam block. Press hard enough to leave an impression, but not so hard that you poke all the way through the foam! You will probably have to go over your design a few times to make nice deep indentations. 

Choose a color for your print. Keep in mind that the pattern itself will appear white, and the surrounding area will have the color you choose. Use a paintbrush to *lightly* coat your foam block with paint. Paint the entire block all the way to the edges.  Try not to get too much paint in the indentations! (If you have a roller, you can use that for a smoother paint application.) 

Place your printing block, paint side down, onto the card stock. Press down firmly, making sure all four corners of the block touch the paper! 

Remove your block and admire your print. (You can press it onto the card stock again, or put more paint on first. You can also wash off your block, dry it, and use a different color!) 

Once your whole sheet of card stock is printed and dry, you can use crayons, colored pencils, or markers to add additional color to your designs. You could add a second pattern in between prints, create a geometric border, or add color to any imperfections in your print. 

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Arts, Crafts, Tools, and Symbols: Learn with The Museum of Russian Art

Engagement: Design Your Own Patterned Print

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