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family Daphniidae, a cladoceran native to Eurasia. Only about 2 mm long, it’s found in all sorts of standing freshwater bodies from rock-pools to large lakes. They mainly eat algae.

I made this as a Tetrapak intaglio print to capture the fine lines and also I wanted to make a circular print to give you the feeling of looking through a microscope.
Tetrapak printing is something you can do with Tetrapak containers - in this case an empty box of juice! I made a plate by cutting a circle 2

and incising the image of the Daphnia in reverse. I pushed relief ink into the lines using an old toothbrush, scraped away excess ink with a rectangle of stiff cardboard and then wiped the surface with a rag - much like you would with a traditional etching plate. I printed the images on paper pre-soaked in water using my small etching press. In theory you could print these with elbow grease and say, a spoon, but a press is much easier. I found it took a lot of pressure. 3/4

It’s good to be able to raid the recycling bin for art supplies, and it’s easy to cut a Tetrapak plate in any shape you want. But the plates don’t last the way a zinc one would, and you can only make smaller editions.

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