Print Making with Recycled Materials

Tetra Pak Etchings and Junk-Shop Prints

Charlie Ash trained as a woodcut and relief printmaker after Falmouth School of Art, and has spent his career since finding print potential in unlikely places, medieval brass plates, satellite scans, discarded packaging.

This three-week course at New Brewery Arts's Brush Studio applies that eye to beginners, building three separate techniques entirely from recycled and found materials.

Week one swaps metal etching plates for washed Tetra Pak cartons, scored and worked with hand tools then run through a professional etching press for the bold, graphic lines etching is known for.

Week two moves to mono-printing with botanical scraps, packaging and textiles for looser, more improvised patterns, and week three covers Taku-hon, a Chinese relief technique that moulds paper around household and garden objects to lift surprisingly detailed prints from things most people would bin.

All ink, tools and press time are provided; participants just need to keep saving cartons, cuttings and oddments to bring along each week.

No printmaking experience is needed, and three Fridays spent turning packaging into etching plates is a good argument for looking twice at what's heading for the recycling bin.

Friday 18 September 2026 · New Brewery Arts, Brewery Court, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 1JH · Starts 10:00am