I’ve been testing out a variety of glues to use for making my trash prints. I had a sweet little plate made out of an Ocean Spray Drink packet carton. These cartons are quite small and the card is stiff but soft enough to carve easily. The paint is nice and slick, but not overly plasticky. As cartons go, it’s an ideal surface. I had it carved up and wanted to add some areas of really bright white. I added in some spots, dots and lines with matte Mod Podge.
I like the matte mod podge because it holds its lines and a container of it is $1.25 or $1.50 at DollarTree. Very affordable. What I mean by holding the lines is that the material doesn’t spread out, it stays where I put it and doesn’t shrink much.
In the inking process it looked good, the mod podge wiped clean and looked great. Very bright looking.
Once I ran the plate through the press, all happiness was lost.
Disaster. Any spot with mod podge was reactivated with the wet paper and the press pressure. I had a lovely emboss, BUT the action of pulling the print away showed me that the mod podge was fully adhered to the paper. No matter which way I pulled it tore. The print would have been amazing too. 
Live and learn.
I did end up with one good print from tetrapak. It’s a farm in a snowy field, and I like how it came out. I’ve been experimenting more with making marks with sandpaper and other tools and got some really nice deep darks and I like how I used wood glue (which DOES NOT reactive) to get some highlights in the road.
A pic of the plate and the print.
I have to remember that when it comes to sandpaper on tetrapak that LESS is More. Those tiny lines really hold a TON of ink. That being said, I REALLY like how it ads some loose randomness that isn’t quite so easy to control.
I also made a rookie mistake and used very wet paper and ended up soaking the print through 140lb Stonehenge, the protective paper and into the press blankets. I’ve never every done that before. That said, the paper took the emboss really well and the print looks magnificent.
Printmakers Badge of SHAME
I tried to do a print reveal video of the torn print but I swore too much to be able to load it to YouTube without it getting me censored.