An example of recent studio experimentations using tetra pak as a plate surface. The study originates from a sketch made after a visit to a local botanical conservatory. The bird of paradise blossom was in full bloom and made a good subject to interpret using a print based medium. In this case I chose a small tetra pak surface to use as a plate to transfer my sketch onto and scribe line into the surface and print onto paper using an intaglio technique.
I traced the main shapes from my sketch onto thin transparent tracing paper using a soft 6B pencil. The tracing paper was flipped over and aligned over the surface of the tetra pack panel (thin plastic coated foil fused to the paper fiber base). I went over the lines I could see through the paper using a hard but sharp pointed tip HB pencil and this left the impression of the 6B tracing but in reverse. Then with the use of an etching needle and cross hatching I was able to add in more tonal variation with cross hatch and stipple.
Oil based Cranfield Safewash etching ink was wiped onto the plate surface and down into the scribed lines using a dabber made from tightly rolled up craft felt held together with a piece of duct tape. I wiped the ink with a soft porous fabric (not tartalan as it would be coarse and left scratch marks in the surface that would show with ink). I polished the plate surface with thin newsprint.
I lightly misted & blotted a piece of 250 gm all media cotton rag paper that was then placed over the upward facing inked plate set on the press bed. A piece of newsprint was set over top of the print paper (protects blankets but helps absorb any moisture, then blankets were carefully set over top of this. I then passed all of this under the roller of my table top etching press.
The print was carefully removed and taped down onto a piece of mdf board to dry. Later I added washes of watercolour into the white regions to colourize the image. The plate and printed image size is small (7 cm x 8 cm). I was able to yield a total of 5 good images from the plate before it deteriorated to a point that the line was very faint.
