Punch Transfer Technique

In an old book about Indian miniatures I came across this ancient method of transferring an image...and I found it fascinating. It's a stencil of sorts, but would be fun to do with kids since it doesn't involve complicated positives and negatives, rather it's a fairly straightforward way of copying images, with no limitations on how complex the original image is.
The act of copying things has become such a non-issue for kids growing up surrounded by xerox machines and in-home color printers and copiers that I think it's fun to point out that it wasn't always this simple. Entire art forms have been invented for the purpose of making copies. I have alway enjoyed teaching children rudimentary ways of copying images, from covering the back of a page with graphite or pencil lead and then tracing over the image to on front (homemade carbon paper), to actual carbon paper--stacks and stacks of it for multiple images, and, of course, printmaking. But this punch transfer is new to me.
Offer kids a darning needle, toothpick, or drypoint tool and challenge them to punch holes along the important lines of a drawing or a photograph. With a new piece of paper underneath, use a bit of ground up charcoal, colored pastel, or tempera powder and rub gently on top of the image, making sure it doesn't move until entire image is covered. Then connect the dots on the paper underneath. It could be fun to make multiple copies, overlap images, even thread a needle and make stitches in the original punched paper. Many of the shapes in the original could probably be punched out and used for collage. This could be a fun one-off project for exploring and experimentation in between projects, or it could turn into something bigger. I always enjoy being honest with the kids when I'm trying something new, and encourage everyone to jump in and brainstorm about possibilities.

Kolams (Rangoli) Chalk Stencils

In Pondicherry in the south of India, women decorate the ground in front of their house every morning with designs called kolams. They use a mixture of rice flour and pigment and use templates or work freehand. It was believed that it was important to always have a welcoming home, and the fact that creatures like birds, squirrels, and ants would eat the rice flour was a part of this idea of providing an inclusive environment (also Lakshmi, the goddess of posterity might show up!). As the day goes on the kolams are trampled and the artwork disappears and then the next morning the women sweep and wash the ground (sprinkling it with water) and reapply them, making a brand new design each day. It is important that every line is closed, to prevent evil spirits from entering. Women stand up, but bend over the entire time they create, and so it's considered to be good for digestion, reproductive organs, and a good form of morning exercise and stretching. Modern templates are made by using blue block-out on silk screen-like screens (round) or by punching holes in tins...a handful of rice flour goes in the tin and when the tin is tapped on the ground the pattern comes out. Fancy borders are made using tubes that have holes punched in them..traditionally they were made out of (clay or) tin but the ones I saw from Pondicherry were just thin lengths of PVC piping. The little tubes are packed with rice flour and then rolled on the ground to make patterns for the borders.

We could replicate the tin stencils by punching holes in sturdy paper plates. And thin cardboard tubes (the kind that come with wrapping paper) would be great for rolling borders. This could be a fun and meaningful school art project, if teams of children were to be assigned the front of the school from one day to the next. It's a nice step up from sidewalk chalk, and would also be a wonderful introduction to the idea of impermanence in artwork. Design and pattern suggestions can be found at http://www.ikolam.com/

Here are the stencils:

This is what it looks like when the rice flour is pressed through: