Europe and workshops

I am about to go to Europe for the IAPMA Congress that is happening next month in Fabriano, Italy at the Museo della carta e della filigrana. I have just finished putting together a catalogue for the members show and am putting the finishing touches together for both my travel plans and those for husband and daughter who will be travelling in Italy while I am at the congress. I will be visiting Paris for the first time and Netherlands and Italy for the second, it will be Mike's first trip to Europe.

From the week after I get back I will be teaching a series of workshops for Open Drawer on decorative papers.

A series of classes looking at ways of getting pattern and colour onto paper.

4 x 3 hour workshops $60 each payable to Open Drawer

Time: 12.30 – 3.30pm

Friday July 25th:    Natural Dye and Print

Make marks onto paper using a range of natural materials including tealeaves, gum leaves, ferns, berries and a range of metals. Some great effects can be achieved.

Bring along a range of leaves from your garden

Material Fee $6 includes: paper and other materials needed – payable to Gail on the day

Friday August 8th:    Indigo and Rust

Learn how to set up an indigo vat for dyeing paper (and fabric) to a range of beautiful blues. Also learn about rusting paper using readily obtained chemicals then combine the two processes to achieve some wonderful effects.

Material Fee of $10 includes:  paper and chemicals – payable to Gail on the day

Friday August 22nd:   Paste Papers

Get back to kinder with some finger painting. Use a range of tools to create beautiful patterns on paper using paste and colour.

Material Fee $10 includes: all materials needed for workshop

Friday September 5th:   Scraper Paper

Get some wonderful effects on paper using acrylic paint and a scraper of some sort, a great use for old plastic gift cards.

Bring along a spray bottle and at least three tubes of acrylic paint (Jo Sonya works well, anything that is not too thin) including one metallic colour. Please also bring disposable gloves and wear an apron.

Material Fee $6 includes: all  Paper - payable to Gail on the day

Beautiful Silks workshop with Velma Bolyard

I recently did a three day workshop with Velma Bolyard at Beautiful Silks in Fitzroy and have finally put together a book of some of the papers we decorated during the class ( I plan to make a second book but that is very much just a plan) The first few pictures are of this second book that will consist of indigo dyed papers and some plant dyed papers in the blue range (I will probably also slip in some cyanotypes and blue jeans paper)

Indigo, sumi ink and rust on hanji

Indigo on hanji and fabric

Indigo on Fijian tapa and in background, case paper from Iowa

Found on the way to class, an owl's feather and palm 'stuff'

Cyanotype on light fabric sewn to paper and dyed with eucalyptus, rust and other plant material

Papers dyed with rust, eucalyptus, blueberries and other plant material

The sections ready for sewing

The cover ready Iowa case paper and tapa dyed with eucalyptus, rust and other plant material.

Several of the spreads from the book

A fold out map sewn into the book

More spreads

My little piece of shifu. Thread made from daphne paper made japanese style. 

First spread with the shifu hiding in the pocket.

The book completed, a stationers binding, sections sewn over tapes and attached to the cover with tackets, leather thong to hold all together.

A few new books

I made the first two books as models for my bookbinding workshop that was held in Colac on the 13th July. This one is portrait and a mix of Coptic and Celtic binding, the covering paper is some that I made and dyed in a workshop with Amanda Degener when she came to Australia a couple of years back, this one is dip dyed in indigo.

This one is landscape and is a straight two needle Coptic. The cover paper is Belgian flax, dip dyed in indigo and walnut, also made in the class with Amanda. 

This is the one I made in class as a demonstration model. I had materials for 8 people(including myself) but 11 arrived so we had to share the materials and I realised pretty soon that two books was too much to aim for so my demonstration model covered both stitches. The cover of this one is some scraper paper I made a while ago with acrylic paint on cartridge.

And the class showing off their finished books at the end of the class!

workshop and new work

The armature workshop the weekend before last went really well, two days of play with kozo and cane. We made shapes, covered them with gauze then dipped them in a vat of kozo, a technique I learned from Catherine Nash back in 2000 in Tuscany. Pictured is the one I made in the workshop, I dipped it again when I got home then carefully peeled off the fabric once the paper was dry.

During the workshop we did the whole preparation of the kozo from cooking, through washing to beating then Japanese style sheet forming. Most of the morning of the second day was taken up with beating, there were a few sore arms after that. We set up a temporary vat and made sheets which we separated by just a thread in the Japanese style. After a slow, fairly short press with a board and a slowly filled bucket of water I brushed some sheets onto a large pressing board at the Bundoora studio, I took the rest home and rolled them onto fibro cement sheet. I have now torn each sheet into 16 pieces for the next edition of the Deckle Edge (Papermakers of Victoria newsletter). Each workshop participant took home a ball of kozo, myself included, I made some up yesterday to make books for the Melbourne show, I have entered two oriental books, now I have to make them.

Last week was pretty busy after the workshop I went into work to do the tax on Monday, Tuesday was Women's Art Register, Wednesday the Alcove Art Shop, and Thusday I gave a talk and show and tell at Ivanhoe Library, Friday I cleaned the house and prepared for dinner guests, Saturdaywe went to the Dali exhibition and spent nearly three hours there, what a great show and diverse work.

This week I'm catching up on creative stuff, I actually have three days in a row where I can work and as long as I get off the computer I will get a bit done. Yesterday I made some cards using the black card that was given to us by the printer at Bundoora and I bound one and a half books. I also made some kozo and recharged the indigo vat to dye some thread and some kozo pulp, I intend to make some cloud paper with indigo and plain kozo. Today I plan to make some paste paper and do some more indigo dyeing. At my talk last week one of the participants brought in some of the books she'd made, she attends classes with Rae Cummings at Panton Hill. One of the books had a cover of paste paper where the paint used was one of the Lumiere halo colours. I have some pots of that so thought I'd give it a try on the black card. It looked very stunning on the book and I think it would look good on cards.

The books are a series of Melbourne books using some of the photos I took while preparing for the Shared Journeys workshop earlier in the year. I decided to use some of the images for cards too. I have chosen to use a combination of Celtic and Coptic to bind the journals, I like the way these bindings look and how they open flat.

winter excuses

It has been nearly a month since I posted and I guess I haven't been producing much in the way of artworks. I have edited two magazines which has kept me at the computer a lot and since winter has hit there isn't much desire to head out to my open air workspace.
Here are a few pieces I made a while ago in preparation for a workshop I am running in July on using kozo and armatures. I have made a series of boats and other vessels, there is something special about the boat, it can represent so many things. I haven't named any of these pieces yet but I will get around to it eventually.

Bamboo and kozo dipped

Cane, thread and kozo dipped

Bamboo and Kozo sheet

Wisteria and Kozo dipped

Cane and Kozo, dipped and wattle sticks and Kozo also dipped

Chicken wire and Kozo dipped

Chicken wire and pulp painted recycled cotton paper.

I am also working on an altered book as part of a Yabbers round robin. The two people before me did boots so I thought I'd continue in the footwear vein. Here are some drawings on gessoed pages.

And an added page and some wax rubbing of soles of shoes.

At our last meeting of Papermakers we made concertinas by drawing a page then passing it on, we got the one we started with at the end of the day. I thought I'd connect the diverse images by dipping in my indigo vat, it did much up some of the images a bit by making them bleed but I like the covers!