Adventures In Paper Making
I got some funding this year from VACMA (Visual Artists and Craft Makers Awards) and Culture Heritage and Arts Assembly, Argyll and Isles (CHARTS), to learn how to make paper from my studio waste, as well as learning about how to incorporate natural materials into papers.
The main reason I wanted to do this, is that as someone who creates artworks by cutting paper, I end up with lots of tiny bits of paper that always feels wasted just going straight into the recycling bin. With this, I wanted to learn about how I could re purpose this paper and make my artwork more circular, and ultimately reduce my overall waste. Sustainability is a key part of my practice and to be able to expand on this more was a fantastic opportunity.
My first steps in learning more about this was doing some experimenting at my home studio, with the equipment I was able to buy with the funding. I didn’t really know what I was doing at this point but you have to start somewhere - It did involve a lot of googling from maybe not completely reliable sources!
There are many things I would have done completely differently in this initial process and knowing what I know now about paper making, its funny how little I knew at this point!
I was really interested in creating textured/ terrazzo papers and this is what I was going for in my initial experiments - wanting the flecks of the waste to be obvious in the paper.
Here’s a list of things I learned that were definitely wrong with how I made the paper the first time.
Used the wrong kind of blender! A hand blender doesn’t have enough coverage or power to be able to process paper effectively. The pulp was really thick and hard to mix with water, just wasn’t fine enough to create a pulp.
Not enough water in the pulp, similar to above water would have helped to have thinned out the pulp and to have made it easier to work with.
Turned out very grey, as all the dye and colour in the papers mixed together really easily. I know now that a base of something like white cotton would counteract this greyness
You need a lot of pressure when pressing it, all I used was wooden boards and books to weigh it down. This just wasn’t enough to make it flat
The paper didn’t dry it out efficiently, it was just left to dry on the couching cloth, which made it more likely to warp/ loose its shape.
With that initial experiment, I knew there was a lot more learning to do! So I booked one to one tuition with Alison at Pulp in Glasgow.
Alison has specialised in all things paper-making for a long time and is the only studio in Scotland that does this. I always knew she would be the first person I would contact when I got round to papermaking , so I was so excited to get to her studio and start making!
I brought a big pile of waste from my home studio in Oban, to Alison in Glasgow, and we began doing lots of different experiments with it.
The first thing Alison did was show me around the studio with all of its wonderful papermaking equipment, fibres and pulps
I learned about some of the base materials that are used for paper including abacca, lokta and cotton and looked at their original forms in nature. I learned more about different quality moulds and deckles, as well as learning about the machinery - including the hollander which processes fabric and the hydraulic press which is really essential for creating seemless paper.
Then we got out lots of vats of water and started preparing the pulps we would create paper with, with various different bases.
Each vat we would start with a base and then add different pulps to create a new pulp. For example, we had a pure cotton pulp, that I then incorporated some of my multicoloured studio waste into.
Another example was starting with abacca and incorporating it with bullrushes that Alison had found locally and processed, and the green coloured paper in my studio waste was also then added into this.
I also learned how to laminate paper to make gradient papers - if you make one sheet and then add another layer on top of it, you can make it into one paper. I half dipped my mould and deckle into the pulp and pasted it on top, which gave a really nice effect. At the same time, I experimented with vibrant coloured pulps that Alison had made as well as using denim pulp.
I also tried out using larger scraps and seeing how they would react in the mould and the deckle, either scattering it on the top of the mould and deckle or incorporating it into the pulp.
When all of the paper had been made, we placed it into the hydraulic press to squeeze as much water out as possible and to flatten it as much as possible.
We then placed it on mountboard with cardboard sheets in between it, and wooden boards on top. This allowed the paper to continue to flatten whilst giving the sheets airflow to be able to dry. Alison then gave it a final press in her small printing press.
After a few days of drying, they were done!
One thing we didn’t quite have time for was using natural materials. But I did learn from Alison while I was there, that when using natural materials in pulps, it has to be processed so it doesn’t degrade and affect the paper as a whole. This ‘process’ which is essentially cooking it in chemicals, can take a while and we ran out of time for it. But I do hope to learn more about this in future and see what papers can be created with natural materials.
Overall, I’m so excited to keep building on this experience and see how I can incorporate these papers into my illustration work and my overall practice!
Thank you to Alison @ Pulp for all your help, I’m so excited to come back soon! You can find out more about her work and maybe attend a workshop or two here https://www.paperartsworkshop.co.uk/classes.html
Thanks also to VACMA and CHARTS for your funding, without which none of this would be possible!
K x
