Workshop: Botanical Tetrapak Printmaking: The Winter Garden
This hands-on printmaking workshop is an opportunity to slow down and look closely at Walworth Garden as it moves into winter, exploring the shapes, textures and details of the plants that remain as the seasons change.
We’ll begin with a period of observational drawing in the garden, looking at seed heads, stems and winter-flowering plants. Rather than trying to create a precise botanical illustration, we’ll explore how line, shape, texture, and composition can capture the character of the plants around us.
We’ll then bring our drawings back into the studio and introduce the process of Tetrapak printmaking. Using recycled Tetrapak cartons, you’ll learn how to translate your observations into a printing plate through cutting, scoring, and etching.
Together we’ll explore:
Observational drawing and looking closely at seasonal plant forms
How to develop botanical drawings into a print design
Creating a printing plate from recycled Tetrapak
Mark-making, texture and layering to capture the character of plants
Inking, colour mixing and printing using a press
This session is ideal for anyone who enjoys drawing, making and working with natural forms. No previous drawing or printmaking experience is needed, and all abilities are welcome.
The session will leave you with your own Tetrapak printing plate and a collection of hand-printed botanical artworks inspired by Walworth Garden in winter, giving you the skills and confidence to continue experimenting with the process at home.
Please dress appropriately for spending some time outdoors in the garden. We recommend bringing warm layers and footwear suitable for the weather.
Meet Emma (she/her)
Emma Bond is a London-based botanical illustrator and printmaker whose practice centres on close observation of the natural world, with a particular interest in pattern, texture and colour.
Working primarily with recycled Tetrapak, Emma creates hand-built collagraph plates through cutting, scoring and layering, transforming an everyday material into richly textured prints.
Her work explores the quieter details and repeating forms found in nature, and her workshops encourage participants to slow down, look closely and discover their own way of responding to the natural world through drawing and printmaking. @emmabondillustration
Price: £92
Note for Southwark residents: Our weekend workshops are now available by paid booking only. We are no longer able to offer free places due to the discontinuation of external funding. We hope to offer free places again at some point in the future.