Hey there, newsletter people. Thanks for tuning in again!
At the beginning of the year I got really interested in the idea of hand made paper - making paper out of grass specifically. I think it was something about the texture and working with natural materials I liked, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. When something is nagging at you like that, you kind of have to follow it, right?
So, I did a little research and built a small deckle and frame and started making some small sheets of paper. First I did grass… then looked around and used any kind of paper I had lying around. Then different plants. Thread. Coffee grounds. Anything I could find or think of that might make interesting colours or textures.
It’s quite addictive. I didn’t really want to draw or print on the paper. It’s kind of bobbly and weird and cool in its own right. I thought paper cut-outs would be a perfect way to make something with these sheets of paper. Monsters is what I know, so monsters is what I made.
Somewhere along the way, I tried using different coloured papers and realised you could kind of slop the paper pulp straight on the deckle instead of pulling it, so maybe you could build out images that way. That’s when I realised I’d seen this before, when David Hockney made his paper pools series. I never knew what he was doing there, but I guess this must have been it.
So I set about making some bigger paper pulp images with the image arranged straight into the deckle.
They came out kind of interesting! I like the big blocky shapes but all the little details when you look up close. I’m going to try some even bigger ones (the ones above are about A2) this summer. The paper pulp takes a long time to dry, but I think lying flat in the sun it’d dry in no time. The summer is also the time for finding more interesting stuff to make paper with - petals, leaves, seeds. That kind of thing. Anyway, I just wanted to share the progress of this over the last couple months or so. Over and out!
Wonderful!
This is the coolest!!