This post is a long time coming, so I’m sorry to those who have been waiting, and I thank you for your patience.

A few weeks ago I ran a couple of Tetra Pak printing workshops, and some of my students wanted a list of everything you’ll need, and where you can buy them. If you’d like a post about HOW to print with Tetra Pak, please comment below and let me know.

Supplies you’ll need

• Tetra Pak. Pretty much all the cartons we use at home these days are Tetra Pak. If you’re unsure, check on the side or the bottom of the carton for the Tetra Pak logo. Tetra Pak cartons can be sometimes be white inside, but are often silver, which is my preferred colour, as I find it makes it easier to see where you have made marks/removed the surface layer.

• An etching tool. These vary in price and style, so it’s worth doing a little research to see what sort of thing would suit you. The ones we used in the workshop were these, and are very cheap to buy. These work well for practising and deciding if you want to explore Tetra Pak printing further, but they’re not the best tool for the job, in my opinion. I really like these ones from Handprinted. They’re reasonably priced and come in a variety of sizes (I find the finer nibs are better for finer detail, deeper marks and easy removal of the surface layer, and wider nibs are better for outline work and softer marks) They also stock professional sets like this one. Alternatively, you can use the tip of a compass, or a sewing needle (I haven’t tried this, but I’ve heard you can easily but the right size needle into a mechanical pencil to make it easier to draw with)

• Tracing paper. Tetra Pak is really difficult to draw directly onto, so the easiest way to transfer any sketches you want to use to help with your etching, is to draw them onto tracing paper first. Once you’ve got your image on the tracing paper, turn it over, pencil side down, onto the Tetra Pak, and transfer the image using the flat of your thumbnail, a bone paper folder (pictured) or by simply scribbling over the image with your pencil. Carbon paper is also a good alternative. Be sure to lift the tracing paper slightly to check the image is transferring clearly, before finishing and lifting it off the Tetra Pak.

• Watercolour paper. We have to use watercolour paper for Intaglio printing, as it needs to be saturated in order for the ink to transfer successfully onto it. Intaglio ink is much more viscous than relief ink and needs the moisture to help draw it off the card and onto the paper. I prefer lighter, smoother papers, as I find the heavier textured paper is harder to work with, but play around for yourself to decide which you prefer. I like around 250gsm. Timings for how long it should soak for are also hit and miss and need to be experimented with.

• A palette knife. Used for both warming up the ink on our palette, and for working it onto, and into, our Tetra Pak plate. You could also use the edge of an old bank card or just a piece of decently strong card for inking up the plate.

• A smooth surface for warming up and mixing our ink. My favourite is glass (from an old picture frame) or a mirror, as these are both exceptionally smooth and will eliminate the risk of any surface fibres getting mixed into the ink

• Scrim. Scrim is a woven material, similar to hessian (but less fibrous) and is used to help work our ink into our Tetra Pak printing plate. You can buy fit for purpose scrim here for a decent price. Alternatively you can also use cheesecloth, muslin, fruit nets, lightweight burlap or even scrunched up newspaper. As long as the surface is rough, as this texture is vital for working the ink into the marks on your plate.

• Rag. Any soft rag, used for removing excess ink from the plate. Old t shirts, tea towels etc are fine.

• Ink. Intaglio ink is very different to relief ink, which is used for lino and wood carving. The two brands I use are Akua and Cranfield. Akua is soy based and is very easy to clean up, whilst Cranfield is oil based and can be a little messier (though the Caligo safe wash inks by Cranfield, despite being oil based, are easier to clean and only need soap and water). It’s also worth noting that, in my experience, the Cranfield, which comes in a metal tube, needs much more working to attain the right consistency for printing. I find that placing the tube in warm water for a few minutes really helps. When looking for ink make sure you’re buying ink that calls itself “etching” or “intalgio” ink. These can be used for relief printing too, but relief inks cannot be used for intaglio printing. Also worth mentioning that these inks can be pretty expensive so best to buy small whilst learning, and purchase bigger tubs when you’re used to it and know you want to continue.

• Water. For soaking the watercolour paper.

• Pasta press. If you don’t have a proper printing press at home, you can do a wonderful job with a simple pasta maker, cheaply bought from Amazon or any kitchen store. I’ve modified mine slightly by taking off the base plate so I can lie it down on my table and feed the paper through horizontally rather than vertically towards the table. This allows better and more constant contact between the press and the paper and creates better prints. A con to using a pasta press is the size limit, as you can’t work on anything bigger than A5, but I like working at this scale, so it suits me fine. Pasta presses can also be engineered even further so a bed can be added to place the plate and paper on (like this). This allows even more consistency, and general ease as you don’t have to manually feed the plate into the press.

• Press blanket. These are traditionally made of wool and help the press grip the plate and the paper as you feed them through, whilst also helping to hold everything together. This page has a lot of interesting and helpful information about press blankets, but for printing with a pasta maker, I find cheap craft felt fits the bill perfectly well. Don’t forget to put the paper and the plate between 2 bit of cardboard too, to help stiffen it. Felt – Card – Paper – Plate – Card – Felt. Like a delicious sandwich. You can buy craft felt can be found here. Again, there is a variety of felts you can buy, so play around and find what works best for you and your set up. Some felts are thicker, stiffer, softer, so there really is a lot to experiment with.

Well, that’s everything you’ll need to start your Tetra Pak journey. Please do let me know if you have any other questions, or if you’d like to know more about Tetra Pak printing. And as I said earlier, if you’d be interested in learning how to print using Tetra Pak at home, I’d love to set up some more workshops in the future, so please let me know.

Also worth mentioning bery quickly, whilst your researching intaglio printing and all the kit you’ll need, be aware that the words “Intaglio” “drypoint” and “etching” are often used interchangeably to describe the same type of printing process. so etching needles or tools will be exactly the same as drypoint pens for example, and etching ink is the same as intaglio ink.

Until next time, happy printing

Jess