Features:

  • inches These butter soft inches foam sheets make great printing plates, they require only the slightest pressure to create working impression which eliminates the need for sharp or pointed tools great for younger ages
  • Easy to cut into shapes or tear to create patterns and designs, accepts water-based adhesives
  • Accepts water and oil base paint, markera, inks
  • Excellent for stencil making
  • Can be used to make quick and easy custom rubber stamps
  • 100 sheets per pack
These are super fun! I used to reuse the styrofoam plates ...

These are super fun! I used to reuse the styrofoam plates brocolli came in, but felt such pressure to get my design just right (I guess we don't eat enough brocolli). I love having abundant sheets, don't have to worry so much about messing up a design. And with brayers and the right printer paint, these are a breeze to use. We discovered a neat trick for printing: instead of spreading out scrap paper to protect your table, just use catalogs, and turn the pages every time you print. Yes, you get paint on every page of the catalog, but who cares, and you always have a completely clean surface to print on, so you don't get ink in all those places you don't want it to go. These are a great price for the amount of headache saved, these have actually turned us onto foam printing (I do this with my 10 and 11 year old kids), whereas before having this product, we were starting to find the craft a little cumbersome.

Great for art projects & metal clay

I bought these to use as "scratch foam" for metal clay projects - I use them to make textures and molds for my metal clay. They work really nicely. Great product and this is a way better price than you see on some jewelry supply sites.

Great for my school printing project

Great for my school printing project. 4x6 thin styrofoam slips. The bolder and harder the pencil pressure a student gives, the better the print.

I came across this product recommended in an online printmaking lesson

I came across this product recommended in an online printmaking lesson. Classroom budgets are (as always) pretty tight and the block printing product we use is getting more and more expensive. Still, print making is part of the curriculum so I'm always actively looking for ways to do the job on the cheap whenever possible. So here are my observations: (1) This product is waaaaay more economical than the "easy cut" material we use throughout our district. (2) While the easy cut material better replicates the sharpness of line one achieves using traditional linoleum block cuts, the Presto Foam product is a pretty good introductory material. I would rate it as excellent for elementary and middle school levels, and acceptable for a foundations high school art class. (In fact, that is precisely how I'm using it this week.) (3) Due to the economy, it's easier to have an "extra" piece of material if a student makes an error. That's generally not possible when using the more expensive product. (4) I was surprised to see how versatile this product is. I've done foam printing with students in the past using disposable foam plates. Opening this product and discovering it was much thinner than foam plates concerned me - at first. But the foam is dense and takes incised line very well. It also does well with larger reduced areas and shapes. In fact, I may use this as an introduction to the concept of material removal before having high school students work with the expensive stuff. Although I haven't tried it yet, I kind of think this would work for reduction printing. While I'm on the topic of printing, I'll share that this material prints well ... IF you use block printing ink. My experience using tempera was a little dicey and I would think kids would get easily frustrated - you really need a thicker substrate to work consistently well. Thinner inks and watercolor won't work at all...they'll bead up on the smooth, unabraided surface. I even tried some intaglio ink because I had it out at the time, and - meh. From a production standpoint, I found that the best application to the foam plate was using a brayer (as you might well imagine.) A little experience is necessary to judge how much is "too much" and how much is not enough to get a good transfer. I've a Speedball hand press that seemed work very well. Simply rubbing with a spoon was ok. Using a brayer was ok. Using a baren worked best.

Good quality

Was skeptical about purchasing these for my art classes , but they are nice. Arrived flat, not bent. I used one first for a printing plate. No problems. Used it with printing ink and it worked fine. Also used a brayer on it to spread my ink. Worked fine. Would purchase again.

Print making ink was much better to use with it

Worked well for my print making class of 35 students. Although, really ink just slides off. Print making ink was much better to use with it.

Great to teach kids

Awesome. I teach elementary art and used speedball waterbased ink with excellent results!

Excellent product with many uses

I am finding so many uses for this product from printmaking, stamping, wrapping small items, etc. Money well spent!

Was surprised at how nice they held up

Bought theses for a 'pre-college' 'Camp' class for high school students to try out printmaking in a very limited amount of time. Was surprised at how nice they held up. They are easy to use, and print nicely by hand (we were using water based block printing and mono printing inks). I will be back for more at some time...I am sure of that.

Perfect for Printmaking art project

We used these for a class art project instead if balsam wood that it called for. They were easy to carve images into and inked up very nice. Make sure to read the size in the description, I did and I think it was just right for the kids.

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