Materials

I love that this method of printing is so accessible and affordable. Here’s some recommendations on where to buy materials, plus some tips for substitutions too.

Pasta machine - If you don’t have one lurking in the back of your kitchen cupboard a great place to look is charity shops. Or you can buy a brand new one in Lakeland for a reasonable £25

Ink - you need to use an etching ink (not a block or lino printing ink). The one we used is a French ink, Charbonnel Aqua Wash (meaning you can simply wash it off hands with soap and water). Available here online at Jacksons Art in lots of colours (including black of course!).

Also great are the Japanese Akua inks are soy based and water washable too. Buy them here at Jacksons too

Etching needles - there’s a whole array of different etching needles available. They also come in different widths, and at lots of different price points. The ‘School Etching Needle’ is perfectly adequate IMHO. Again Jacksons are a great supplier to see what’s available - take a look here

Scrim - you can purchase the scrim (sometimes called Tarlatan) open weave fabric we used to wipe the plate from Jacksons Art here. But you can also use the netting from a bag of lemons/oranges or some muslin would also do the job and is more widely available from any fabric shop.

Paper - we used a 300gsm watercolour paper - nice and thick so you can dampen it without it collapsing and uncoated.

Fabriano watercolour papers are lovely for example this one. Or Arches paper is always a treat, this one here. Or this one at Hobbycraft is also also lovely.

Somerset 300 gsm paper is lovely too - find it here.

You could also use a cartridge paper, or experiment with coloured pastel papers too.

You can buy bigger sized paper, just cut down to the size you need to fit the pasta machine.

Spray bottle You can buy spray bottles in for example Boots, like this one. Or you can simple put the paper into a bowl/baking tray of water to dampen instead (just blot off excess water with kitchen roll).

Toothbrush - a soft one is good to use, and an old one is perfect as it’s softened up. You can wash the ink off and reuse many times.

Frames - the framed print I showed you was in an A6 or 6” x 4” frame, simple float framed. Widely available and affordable - so no excuses not to frame your work!

Here’s an example from Habitat, also John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Dunelm all sell frames this size.

Questions?

I hope I have covered most things, but if you have any questions at all then please do not hesitate to get in touch. You can email me at susan@susanbradley.co.uk Please do share images of your lovely work too, I’d love to see them all.

We’ll be running more workshops at Sketch cafe at York Art Gallery soon, so do let me know if you’d like to get an email when they are open to book.