Recycled Papers Mod 2 Chpt 5

Introduction

This was a really interesting chapter and I engaged with the activities much more than I was expecting, although Activity 3, sewing on recycled papers was less inspiring than I had anticipated and it also took me a while to get into Activity 4, working on gesso as a base but I certainly found one or two things useful to take forwards into work. I also found myself returning to the theme of writing - calligraphy - with a great deal of enthusiasm and am determined now to spend some time really going through the technicality of learning how to do this properly. I came across the work of Denise Lach while I was working on this Chapter and am completely inspired by her work, I also found Peter Crawley's work really interesting too and had hoped to try my hand at this but couldn't find the time to fit something in with this chapter so I'll have to return to his style at a later date.

Recycled Papers

I have been collecting bits and pieces for a while now since I finished Chapter 1 and had quite a large selection of papers, cardboard etc, maps, paper bags, old magazines and the like. I found tissue paper absolutely essential for this chapter and was delighted to use acrylic matt medium as a glue throughout as it was good to use as both a glue and a sealer. I used gloss medium on one or two things to give bits and pieces a bit of a shine and different texture

I started thinking about this chapter while I was in Venice and was interested to see lots of book related art at this years Bienale so I did a little sketching on my way home.

Activity 1 Using Glue to make Recycled Papers

Rather than using newspaper as a base I decided to use brown paper and use a uniform size for all the pieces done for this activity. I had an idea that I might sew them together to form a book, I may use them for Chapter 10. I really had a great time with his activity and was moving along quite well when I realised I was moving off and away from text as a theme  so I hope you'll forgive this.

Starting off with roughly vertical strips of maps etc in various greens yellows and oranges

Then vertical strips of newspapers picked up at the Bienale, one in ascemic script which is really fascinating, So vertical strips with a little green interspersed to lift things a little

Then moving on to a tissue paper base with diamond shapes and added flora and fauna

Then trying out tissue paper as pr my drawings in a shape that could be used as a base for something in the future

The great wave of Brussels next

 Then back to a vertical arrangement of various strips of wrapping paper, tissue paper wrapping from some clothes interspersed with a picture of Ingres Harem cut into strips and elongated across the sheet.

And using layers of dark tissue with various paintings cut up

 Then making a sheet to be used again in the future, tissue paper bits and pieces then a little transfoil to see if it would take on this surface

At this point it dawned on me I had completely diverted from anything to do with words so rectified this in one final piece of vertical strips of wrapping paper, paper bag and strips of print outs done for an earlier chapter, with silver transfoil, with added flower heads made of scrolling B letters and stems made up of strips from newspaper, leaves made from the letter a. I was very pleased with this.

 Activity 2 Weaving

I think I probably enjoyed this activity the most as I was able to do a return to old papers I'd made for earlier chapters and try out some new caligraphy.

Starting off with newspaper

Using different colours

Tissue paper on newspaper cut into different widths

Two paintings woven cut into fine strips and woven

A collage of butterflies and words forming thick vertical stips and a fine green on the weft.

 Cutting up some rejects from chapter 2

 Then having great fun with strips made from printouts from Chapter 1. Firstly thin strips

Varying widths using sample letters and text

Text on plain paper and on printed background - coloured

then same on less coloured paper, my favourite  of this set

Then finally I covered two A3 sheets in orange and red brusho powder to get a strong base colour. Filled each page with red calligraphy then went over the first letter of each word with gold. Then wove the two together. I used a poster nib for this exercise and loved the big letters I was able to create with it.

Activity 3: Adding sewing

I was expecting to really enjoy this activity but it just didn't gel for me at all, with one exception. I'm not sure why this was. I enjoyed the speed of working with Activity 1 and was able to keep pace with ideas as they came to me, and I think  this was the same kind of activity but i found it somehow stretched out beyond the point of enjoyment by the length of time it took to add the stitching,  All in all I was a little underwhelmed with the pieces I did for this activity as I said with one exception.

Starting with vertical strips of recycled paper stitich down with decorative free motion stitiching

Then combing pictures and stitching these

Working on a collage of pictures and added flowers - really didn't like this at all and it took forever to finish

Then going back to something simpler, receipts, recycled text and machined text

Trying a bit of stitching out on some recycled paper (Khadi paper), not inspired much by this as you can probably tell

Then finally finding something I like. a bit of calligraphy on recycled papers, ripped and put back together with firstly the machine, then with hand stitching.

I decided that this idea was definitely working up much more seriously so I called an end to this activity.

Activity 4 working with Gesso as a base

I found that the gesso was a really interesting base to work with and did a number of pieces that were a baseline for further work - maybe for the next chapter - rather than finished items for this activity. I hope this is acceptable. I recently bought myself a small gelli plate and had a go with this and it really worked well on the gesso as it created a broken surface, as opposed to working on khadi paper which was more absorbent and took full colour.

I then tried newspaper with plastic tissue paper (glued on) then gesso and paint - can't say this worked for me but it was interesting to try a completely new texture

Just about to throw out this tabasco box when a thought occured

Working on newspaper and gesso I made a collage using the ascemic newsletter I picked up in Venice. AS I was using it I noticed the stylised drawings were really quite violent which left me in no doubt as to the nature of the content so I added a little of my own text and some blood spatter - enjoyed this

Gesso on newspaper, printed with varying colours on the gelli plate and some large scribble. I was going to cut this up but my girls persuaded me not to.

I took a rather crap book and extracted some pages, painted gesso in various places then came back to decorate

I think there's a lot to take forward from this chapter. It reminds me of the chapter, in the first module, about making colour wash papers. There's so much to play with here, once you get started with things there's no knowing where you'll end up. Most exciting.