Papermaking

Papermaking using recycled papers

What artists do: Back in October I started on on a papermaking adventure. I had never done it before, and always wanted to. I like that you re-use all kinds old papers, emptied tea bags and so on to make something beautiful to write or art on.

After watching a bunch of you-tube videos and gathering the equipment needed, I got going shredding and soaking paper overnight for blenderizing into pulp the next day.

Day one was hard as I could not get the wet pressed paper to release easily from the screen onto the couch cloth. I thought maybe I added to much sizing to the slurry and diluted the slurry with more water, no diff. Many do-overs to get a dozen sheets made.

Day two I went back to you-tube and caught a video demo where a bit of cooking oil was sparingly sprayed on the screen to condition it and that did the trick! I also realized I wasn't adding enough pulp in the slurry, making paper that was too thin and therefore harder to release.

Day 3 was hanging the remaining papers to dry, and removing overnight's hung dried sheets of paper from the couch cloths and pressing them flat.

I can't wait to see how this hand-made paper works for creating art! I have a larger screen on order and will be saving more papers for round two of what looks to be an ongoing papermaking adventure. I want to experiment and add some botanicals and dried crumbled leaves and grasses to see what results.

The joy of learning something new can be an up and down path but very satisfying.

Batch 2 (misc shredded paper plus hops petals, dyed phonebook pages and torn bee-book pages) and Batch 3 (shredded teabag and brown bag papers)