Chapter 4–Paper Making Session 1

I started chapter 4 by making a handful of samples. I will confess I made these quite some time ago (and they went with me to the 2017 Summer School) but have only just come to blog about it. I’ve made paper before so the underlying technique is not new to me but there are lots of ideas in the chapter so it’s very exciting to me! Unfortunately drying space is quite limited in my little flat. I dry the by paper hanging them on a clothes horse but I can only use one of these at a time because:

1) I can only fit one clothes horse in the bath (for the first few hours when there is a lot of dripping)

2) I don’t want lots of damp stuff hanging around as it’s not good for your health!

With this in mind there will be a few sessions of paper making. It’s frustrating because once you get started it’s addictive but when the space has run out you have to stop!

4.1: Paper sheets hanging up to dry

Here are the samples I made in the first session.

4.2: Basic paper - made from copier paper to give one uniform colour per sheet. These pulps became the basis for many of the other samples.

4.3: First attempt at blocks of colour – I put sections of pulp in the frame but there was a lot of merging! Not terribly successful. I will try this again.

4.4: Mixing yellow petals (from dried daffodil heads) into the blender – I blitzed for quite long so the flower pieces are relatively small and are well integrated into the pulp.

4.5: Summer School 2016 – this piece is made from map pages (of the Cotswolds) and grasses collected from the site. The grasses are well integrated into the pulp.

4.6: Map pages, copier paper and paper string (work in progress) – The string was blue to mirror the motorways in the maps. I laid them down and then added another pulp page on top. I squidged (technical term!) them together.

4.7: Map pages, copier paper and paper string – the page was ultimately quite thick (with the two layers of pulp). I pulled the string up to tear the page.

4.8: Map pages, copier paper and paper string (close up) – I like how the tears create little flaps in the paper and how the un-revealed string under the pulp creates a mound.

4.9: Grasses pressed into a papersheet in the frame – I did this before I turned it out and pressed out the water. The reverse side (not shown) has little mounds where the pulp was pressed over the grasses. The grasses have remained embedded in the paper quite well (which surprises me as I thought it would just fall off when it was dry).

4.10: Fibres in pulp – fibres were pushed into the pulp in the frame (before turning out) and some pulp smooshed over the top of some areas to secure them. I deliberately chose colours that were ‘obvious’ so i could see clearly how it worked. Next time I will try to use thread colours that are more sympathetic to the pulp.

4.11: An attempt at blocks of different colour pulps and petals pressed into the pulp – my colour blocking, as with the other attempt, all merged together without distinct edges. Next time I will use two very obviously different colours! The petal have stayed well secured once dry.

4.12: Smaller petal pieces sprinked on top – this is a much more delicate finish than the large pieces in 4.11.

These paper samples were more like cardboard than paper! I need to work out quanities to try and make the samples thinner. I also am going to try and do some more colour blocking to see if I can be a bit more successful.

Finally I couldn’t resist dipping a fennel seed head (from my allotment) into the pulp! After it dried it gave a really interesting structure with the pulp trapped. I’d like to cut off the individual groups of seed heads on another one and press them into a pulp sheet but unfortunately I just cut down some flower heads and composted them before thinking of doing this!

4.13: Fennel seed head dipped in pulp