final papermaking project

Final project completed! The Envelopes need to be folded and glued still and the large paper needs to be pressed at the larger press at CCAD, but I love the result of mixing flowers in the pulp!!

Print Paper


This week I made 60 sheets of paper for myself to use for printmaking this semester. The paper is made out of Abaca and recycled printmaking paper. I still need to put it through the press to flatten it.

Pulp painting Experiments

I tried making sheets of paper with a "pulp painting" method. I was interested in the collage-like approach of using pulp for painting. The end results looked a lot like colored paper collages. To begin, I couched the base sheet onto a felt, then chose a different color and arranged it on top of the base sheet. I experimented with pulp applications (using a turkey baster, squeeze bottles, ect.) and cut a few stencils out of mylar. I had to use a temporary vat that was not very deep which made it difficult to pull the base sheet of paper properly. After all 8 sheets were designed and stacked, I placed them in the press and hung them to dry. I would be interested in doing more pulp painting if it were in a studio that is well equipped to do so.






Learning Goals

1. Papermaking: learn basic terms/process/skills. Make stock for future. (wallpaper?) Make different types of paper. Feel comfortable to do the process alone by the end of the summer.

2. Pulp Painting: murals, sheets of paper, collage, community project aspect. Understand color mixing and concepts. Trial/Error with wallpaper design.

3. Sculpture: Use pulp for 3D sculptural pieces.

4. Make envelopes for personal use.

Pulp Sculpting



After casting a few shapes and letting them dry, I began mixing colored pulp for some sculptural pieces. The pulp will be laid on the mold and then I will press all the water out with sponges. After it dries over night and all the water evaporates the pulp contracts nicely from the mold. I will be selling the pulp sculptures at ComFest next weekend here in Columbus.











700 pieces of paper! what a way to learn....

I have been cranking out sheets of paper over the last week for a large commission, 675 sheets to be exact! I made 70 of them today. A magazine called Prism in New York has asked for a limited edition handmade magazine cover. It has been a great way to practice the art and I feel comfortable doing the process by myself now. After the paper is finished we are also going to screenprint an image for the cover. I will be relieved when it is finished so we can move on to something new!

Summer Mentor

This week kicked off my requirement for a mentor outside of CCAD. I will be working on Parsons Ave with Dan Colvin in his papermaking studio. I will be learning the ancient process of making paper and the more contemporary art of pulp painting. This week has involved research and reading about the history and traditions of making paper. Today I accompanied him to an elementary school that is making a pulp painting mural. It was a long day but I learned the basic concepts of working with the pulp, mixing colors, and other process oriented details. Because I was learning as I went and instructing kids at the same time I feel like I gained a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time. It was nice to go to a school and see kids excited about creating and having fun with the pulp. Next week we will be in the studio with a crash course on all the papermaking basics and finer details. There is so much to learn! I am looking forward to painting with the pulp and seeing where that takes me with my thesis project.

TA week 14 and 15

The last two weeks of class where the final critiques for the last two projects. Students really waited until today to finish everything so there was more work to look at today than last week. But everyone seemed unenthusiastic and barely said anything. I think everyone just wants to be finished, myself included. There are several seniors in the class that seem to be thinking only of graduating. There were a few students who shined, learned all the process, put forth a great amount of time and effort, and made great prints. The rest were very mediocre and I am not sure how a few are passing. We also graded the screens they built the first week of class. It makes since to grade them at the end, to see how well they held up using them throughout the semester. They all did a nice job making them, a few were warped. Kathy and I will be discussing the grading later tonight. It seems like a balanced class, a few A's lots of B's some C-D's and one student is going to fail for missing the last half of the semester and not dropping the class. I am also slightly confused by another student that didn't really do any of the assignments, but made some prints. Kathy said she has taken the advanced class so she is giving her more lee way, I still fell like she should be doing the assignments that everyone else is doing. I am interested to see how that works. She also skipped class today to turn things in. I am also interested to see how not having work for critiques will impact students grades, since this was a major problem with this class. Overall this experience has been wonderful, Kathy has been a great mentor. I am looking forward to teaching this class in a similar manner next fall!!!

TA week 12 and 13

The past two weeks have been working weeks in the print lab. Unfortunately no one has really been working on anything too productive for me to help them. Lots of tinkering with computers and a little bit of drawing. I am not sure when it became cool to procrastinate until the absolute end, but this is definitely the case with this class. We have critique next week, it will be interesting to see the quality of work they produce.....I did however have a pleasant one on one teaching experience with a student. It was good practice at giving instructions/explanations and also rewarding to help him begin the project and get him the tiniest bit excited about what he was doing.

Screenprints

New prints: Screenprinted and a few include monoprinting techniques. I have revisited the sound poems I wrote at the beginning of the semester and have made this series of prints based of them. The poems are more like titles and are written by spontaneous though or chance. The images refer to the poems in some way but are also open to interpretation for the viewer. I have decided that the titles will not be underneath the print in a traditional manner but in a list at the beginning of the wall, this way the inspiration is present but the images stand alone.

I am enjoying screenprinting, as always. I now have two series of prints based off of the poems....They are very different from one another. It has been beneficial to have a stronger focus, making a line with spaghetti and then pushing this idea to exhaustion. For variation I have also been adding some shape and texture but line is my main interest. This is a whimsical quirky line, it is strangely similar to how I draw, which is why I am attracted to it. Unfortunately the colors are a bit off, damn you iphone you aren't perfect yet. I really need to bring my camera around the studio more.




Apocalypse

Apocalypse International Print Exchange with Iowa State University.
A CMYK color separation screenprint, something I usually don't do but I wanted to experiment with using a bleach pen on a photo and then seeing how that would transfer to screenprinting. I think it became a little too bleach out.