Rainbows in Lockdown

 It has been over a year since I last posted and one of the first things I said I'd do was to update my website, sorry that hasn't happened yet and I've had three months!!!
I'm posting this here as an addition to the Papermakers of Victoria magazine The Deckle Edge. I wrote an article about making some rainbow paper but there wasn't room for all the images so here is the article with all the images:-

Rainbows and light

When Anne Pitkethly threw out the challenge to put a paper rainbow in my window I accepted and broke up a batch of recycled letterpress paper into five lots. I dyed them red, yellow, green, blue and purple. I made my rainbow on a mould by pouring the pulp and couching onto a readymade sheet of paper. I then had lots of coloured pulp left over and I made some sheets with a watermark of my old school motto ‘Respice Lucem’ that means ‘Look to the light’. I already had the text cut out of waterproof cloth tape and stuck to fibreglass fly screen that fits on a mould the right size to fit one of the small lamps from IKEA. 

I needed an A3 sized vat for those sheets and was able to pull two of each colour before I drained the vat and started again with the next colour. I have put the watermarked sheets in my window along with my teddy bear and my pulp painted rainbow. I can read look to the light from the inside it could be interesting to see how lightfast the dyes are.

After emptying the vats I still had quite a bit of the coloured pulp left so thought I’d try some pulp marbling. I first learned about this technique from Christine Ballinger at the IAPMA Congress in Adelaide in 1998 and had only used it once before when I was doing a lot of floral pulp paintings and I made a vase using the technique.  What you need is formation aid and although I haven’t tried it you might be able to use okra or prickly pear. Have water and formation aid in a vat deep enough to cover the mesh of your mould but not so deep that it covers the deckle.

Weigh down the deckle so that it doesn’t float off. Mix some formation aid and water with your pulp so that it has the consistency of pouring cream; use a sauce bottle, turkey baster or slip trailer (ceramic tool) to pour the pulp onto the mould.

Once you have coverage you can use a skewer to move the pulp around.  

When happy with the result couch the sheet, then to support it couch another sheet on top or do as I did and couch onto a readymade sheet.

The dry sheet

Christmas and Silver

Yesterday I was heading out the back door with a bucket of pristine white pulp, a few moulds and deckles and some other stuff to take up to my shed and I dropped the bucket, it broke into pieces and pulp went everywhere, I managed to scrape up most of it and the chooks took care of the rest, they loved it, the picture shows when they had eaten half of it, when I came back later there was nothing left, I hope it doesn't do anything strange to their digestive system or the eggs! They seem fine this morning though no eggs yet.

  

I managed to finish off the paper for the wedding programs yesterday along with some plain paper for cards. Next year I am organising an exhibition celebrating IAPMA's 25th birthday and it will be a silver show. All IAPMA members were sent a piece of silver paper to use to create something for the show. The silver I used is made in Italy by Quill and I came across it because MJ wanted it for her wedding invites and because I printed off one set of slips with the wrong information, I had lots to recycle. I just used a blender to pulp down the silver and combined it with some recycled black mountboard to make my Christmas cards and a book for the Silver Show. For once I am way ahead of the game, closing date for entries is 1 August 2011, mind you I haven't bound it yet, I'm still deciding how to go about it. I printed on the silver for my Christmas cards and used the same punch I bought for the wedding invites.

Front of Christmas Card

Inside

All the sections of the anniversary book

 

Inside one of the sections

detail of cover silver on black

Detail of inner cover black on silver

I realised the other day that I had nothing left in my etsy shop so it is time to make some more books. So far I have only arranged one and haven't even bound it, I'm still deciding on the thread. That is today's challenge once I get off this computer. I recently took a range of my journals and a few artist books down to Open Drawer a textile shop, gallery and workshop space in Hartwell, very close to where I live.

 Last month I taught a cyanotype workshop for 69 Smith Street Gallery and when I came home I exposed some organza using a peacock feather as the mask, they are beautiful pieces but I am not sure what I will end up using them for, I was a little surprised that they worked so well because I had kept the mixed chemicals for a couple of weeks before I coated the fabric, then I left one sitting in the dark for a couple of days and the other for a couple of weeks awaiting time and sunshine. I bought the chemicals from Gold Street Studios and their service was fabulous and the chemicals were beautifully packaged.