Printing with a pasta maker

I am involved in a project called Evolve with Worcester Arts Collective. It is a 40 week project with the idea being that you produce a small piece of art each week which will be exhibited together at the end of the 40 weeks.

I am using the opportunity to work in two different ways.

Firstly I am collaborating with Richard Nicholls to create a piece of art on alternate weeks in response to the art produced by the other the previous week. It’s been a lot of fun so far and is a great way to push ourselves out of our comfort zones in terms of media and content.

Secondly, I am using a sketchbook for my personal Evolve project. I wanted to create something that was not ‘precious’ in order to explore different ways of working and different media whilst exploring ideas associated with the IUCN Red List for birds.

I have been painting, drawing, and using photography and collage for both rojects but I wanted to try some printing.

I found a video on Youtube by Jenny McCabe showing how to use a pasta maker as a printing press – I had a pasta maker in the back of a cupboard so I gathered everything else together including a tetrapak to use as a printing plate to carve the image, plus some printing ink and material to use as printing blankets.

I created a very simple image on the tetrapak with a scalpel which is on the left hand side and once I had inked it and wiped off the excess I ran it through the pasta maker and created the image on paper on the right hand side.

There are obvious limitations with regard to size but it’s an accessible and fun way to explore printing and I’m looking forward to trying something more detailed.

If you want to have a go then I highly recommend Jenny McCabe’s Youtube video, you’ll never want to make pasta again! Her website is full of useful information for all things printing inclusding workshops that she runs and the links to her youtube videos.