Yes, I am continuing my obsession with marks and mark making. I’ve been diving back into printmaking as the kids I work with this year are open to the various manners of printing in a way they weren’t last year.* So I’m back to trash printmaking- specifically tetrapak or the stuff that soy and nut milk cartons** are made of. Back in the 90s and early 00s the material was billed as “easily recyclable” and now we’ve learned that it really isn’t, and worse yet, is not accepted in many US recycling programs. I’m also exploring a variety of cartons.

Anyway, it makes a lovely surface for making prints. I have detailed this before, so I won’t rehash too much of what I have already written.

I have used old school standard etching needles, various metal working tools, a machinist’s scribe (a fave), needles in pencils, various awls, and most recently a rotary tool.This was made with a standard etching needle.

Each tip for the rotary tool give a different mark and each tool acts a bit differently on the various tetrapack and other carton materials.

I really like the carton materials for a whole variety of reasons but the largest is the variety of marks that the material is capable of holding. From super fine to wide bold lines it’s really cool to see what the materials can do with all the tools.

I’ve got to get some more photos of the prints and tools, but the rotary tool I’m using is the Fanttick F2 Master. Honestly any of the cheap rotary tools on ‘zon or other places would work as well***. I’ve used the Harbor Freight $10 rotary tool and it worked well until I used it for… stuff it wasn’t intended for and I broke it. But for $10 if I had treated it better, it would have been perfectly fine and would still be working. Probably.

I would suggest that for this kind of work, having something light is more beneficial over power. You don’t need a lot of torque to cut through thin plastic, foil, and card. I’ll get more into this in another post.

More on these tools and marks later.

*My studio and where I work work in a very different manner from a school. Our groups are therapeutic and require that materials and methods match the needs of the youth attending. Last year I’d planned on having a year of printing but printing can be a bit rigid. The methods for inking must be followed or prints don’t look exactly like what we want and that leads to frustration and disappointment. I chose to switch things up and move in a different direction.

** Also broths, juice boxes, and some tomatoes.

***I went with Fanttick because I followed a link from a creator I follow and they seem to have decent customer service, so if it dies too soon I have maybe get a replacement.