25 Days of Fibre Paper

 At the start of December Helen Hiebert started a project where she posted on her blog something paper related for each of the December days until Christmas. She called the project 25 Days of Paper and every second day provided instructions for projects and the other days information about different paper businesses.
I managed to keep up with the projects for the first week and a bit but then went to Tasmania for a week and although I took a paper tool kit with me I didn't touch it and when I got home I got too busy. However last night and this morning I was able to complete the rest of the projects.
Here are my 13 pieces all made from plant fibre paper.

Window Star, mixed plant fibre

Abaca Lantern without abaca, left kangaroo paw right mulberry bast fibre

Cut out tree card, NZ flax card with fibre behind cut out

Tyvek accordion lantern, New Zealand flax and kangaroo paw fibre

Ball Ornament large; bluebell flower stem and small; mixed fibre

Gift Tag outer; mixed fibre, inner; Kangaroo Paw fibre 

Luminaria cotton and denim

Luminaria watermarked kozo

Pop Up Card New Zealand Flax and Kangaroo Paw fibre

Peace Tree Card New Zealand Flax

Cut and Punched Lantern Bluebell flower stems

Origami Snowflake Mixed plant fibre (with out the tree bases! forgot to cut them out)

Origami envelope Cordyline fibre

Thank you Helen, it has been fun.

CAS brooch show and some nature printing experiments

The Contemporary Art Society of Victoria has a brooch show opening on the 1st of June and since members get to enter for no charge I thought I should participate. I made three brooches from paper pulp pressed into carved plaster that I coated with shellac and graphite then acrylic paint then scraped back some of the paint.

Fossil 15#3

Fossil 15#2

Fossil 15#1

The fourth brooch was one of my experiments with nature printing and embossing. I inked up a parsley seed head with waterless block printing ink then made a small sheet of paper from recycled abaca and pressed the inked seed head into the paper and dried it on a sheet of fibro cement. I then gave it a few coats of shellac then sewed seed beads on. 

Seed

I tried a few different ferns as well as the seed heads and then I also printed onto some mixed fibre sheets I had made as samples for the workshop I am running in early July, Journey; an Artist Book from Go to Whoa.

Fishbone fern on recycled abaca

Back to work

My new range of cards available from Stonehouse Gallery, Alcove Artshop and Open Drawer

Fibre paper pack, available from all above and from etsy

 I have updated my website www.gailstiffe.info with instructions for making paper from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. This method also works beautifully with daphne, fig and hibiscus and many other shrubs. Here are the images.

Workshops and Exhibition

I am teaching a cyanotype workshop for Papermakers of Victoria on the 29th March and thought it was about time I added to my blog, I see it has been over two months since my last post. At the workshop we will be making digital negatives and coating some handmade as well as watercolour paper and fabric and will be hoping for a sunny day. The pictured cyanotypes are some of my older works, two from 2007 and one from 2010 and the black and white is a negative that I will use as an example in the workshop. 

Leek flowers, negative

Cyanotype, Clouds over Bundoora 2007

Cyanotype on handmade kozo Nest 2010

Cyanotype and collage on handmade recycled paper Greetings from India 2007

I am also teaching for Fibre Arts Australia in July this year and I have recently made myself a new mould and deckle (making one will be part of the workshop) and used it to make a book for the up coming exhibition being held at Stonehouse Gallery in Warrandyte by a group from Papermakers of Victoria. Thereby killing two birds with one stone as it were!

The River 2015

The River 2015

The River 2015

The River 2015

The colophon for my book, the case/cover is a cut down posting tube.

The River

Gail Stiffe 2015

Extracts from ‘Siddhartha’ by Herman Hesse 1877 - 1962

Paper a mix of cotton, hanji and wood pulp along with NZ flax and mulberry bast.

Original digital images inkjet printed onto NZ flax paper with archival inks.

Edition 1/2

The invitation for the exhibition at Stonehouse Gallery.

Sunday workshop and a book finally made

I started this post nearly a week ago but somehow none of it saved so here goes again.
I am teaching a workshop for Papermakers of Victoria this coming Sunday and we are doing acetate etching (although it is perhaps more correctly acetate engraving). I have done a bit with sheets of thickish acetate scratching the surface with an awl and that is what we will be concentrating on however I have also been playing around using an engraver on perspex and was happy with the results so we will do some of that too.
Here are a few that I did with the acetate:-

And these ones I did with the perspex and the engraver.

Some time ago I blogged about a workshop I did with Velma Bolyard in February this year, well it took getting together with Chris to bind our PoV snake books (from longer ago, last December!) to finally bind the second book of pages that were in the blue tones. Some I dipped in indigo but I also slipped in a few cyanotypes and other bits and pieces.

This book will be going to Fabriano to the IAPMA congress for the silent auction and I have started work on my keepsakes, I have enough of the plant fibre paper that is a mix of papyrus and New Zealand flax both of which got well washed and bleached somewhat by the rain. I have made my two plates from easy cut rubbery material and done a trial print, the next challenge is to see if they will overprint without too much slippage.

The snake book bound! At last.

                                    

My page on right, the back of Chris's on the left

More of my page, all the paper is yukka, the top sheet has been momigamied with arrowroot paste and the bottom sheet has daphne bast fibre added and has a lino print.

Mind you while I am mucking around with this blog I should be either printing my keepsakes, binding some eco books or preparing the catalogue for the Congress members show. I had better get back to at least one of these!!!