- DURATION 60 mins
Event Description
Join Amy, pick up your recycling, and create something unexpected! Tetrapak enables the artist to cut, score, peel and print, creating unique artworks from recycling waste. Using a juice, milk, soup or custard carton, you can play with the process of drypoint - a fine art intaglio print technique - using low cost, immediate materials. The idea is to scratch a drawing into the silver-side of the tetrapak, apply ink, clean the ink so that it just stays in the areas you have scratched and then print.
Put on your old clothes/ apron/ gloves, find a clean surface to work on, or place newspaper on a surface to protect it.
You will need:
- A cleaned, flattened tetra pak
- A drawing/ image/ photograph as inspiration to work from
- Scissors
- Metal skewer/ etching needle/ sharpened nail – anything sharp to scratch the tetrapak surface/ draw with.
- Blue tak (to create a handle, around the skewer, so you can hold it like a pencil)
- Tracing paper
- Pencil
- Tea towel/ nonslip rubber mat (to stop your tetrapak slipping when printing)
- Clean old towel/ newspaper or newsprint (for blotting the soaked paper)
- Cartridge paper or similar work well, or anything about 45gsm such as mesa paper or other thin-ish Japanese paper. The usual 300gsm print paper is not sensitive enough when printing by hand. Remember you will need to work within the confines of your paper size, so the tetrapak will have to be cut smaller.
- Tub of water, big enough to soak your chosen paper in (I’ll be using a takeaway container or my washing up bowl!) or you could spray the paper with water before printing. Blot with newspaper if too wet
- Block ink – I will be using block ink, but you could experiment with oil paints. You will need to spread the oil paint onto newspaper to absorb excess oil before printing, so it becomes thicker/ paste-like in consistency.
- Old credit/ store card or small piece of mount board (credit card sized) – to apply ink to the tetrapak plate surface
- Plastic netting (from fruit/ veg), or scrim/ old cloth – to remove ink from the plate
- Recycled tissue (from packaging) – to wipe the plate a little cleaner
- Tablespoon (for applying pressure when printing)
- Duration: 60 mins
- Online Zoom event: Join from your computer, phone or tablet (no replay available)
- Check the list of materials needed
Meet the Host, Amy Hutchings
Amy Hutchings is a printmaker, based in Bristol, specialising in silkscreen and hand print techniques. With a passion for colour and line, her work captures the every day. Amy is also involved in many different community art projects and loves using art to engage with different communities.
Preparing for the Event
For the best experience, you will need to have Zoom downloaded onto your computer. Please ensure you're connected to broadband/wifi rather than using your mobile phone connection (3G/4G).
We also recommend that pets are either calmly sitting on your lap or in another room, and any refreshments you may require are within your reach!
More Information
What if I can’t make the event?
If a recording’s available for the event, you can still register for it and we will send you an email with a link to a recording shortly after it ends.
Will my camera be on and will I be visible to the other people?
Your camera and microphone does not need to be on for you to enjoy the event. The choice about whether to do this is completely yours.
How do I watch the live event?
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How do I sign-up for and access the recording? (Recorded events only)
Book the event as normal (as if you are attending live). After the event ends you will automatically receive a post-event email with a link to the recording, as long as the event was recorded. You do not need to do anything else and there is no separate booking process for recordings only. Please note it can take up to 24 hours for Zoom to process recordings.