Paper making update!

 This is longggg overdue and will be a bit of a jumble as there area a couple of things I forgot to include in the previous post but nonetheless...

During the first letter press experiment, it was suggested to use newspaper cut outs directly onto the handmade paper, which will then dry into the paper.

I hadn't moved onto A4 paper at this point so it was a tad awkward but I was intrigued to see whether or not it would work!

I then pressed a few pieces of the paper for a couple of days, while still damp to see if I could get it a bit flatter and then left it in the plastic sleeves whilst I went home for a few days;

I think I left it in the plastic for a bit too long, it started to smell a bit odd but not that important at this point. An update on this round in just a moment...

It worked! Very thick but it worked!

I did the newspaper again, just in a much better space.

Not fully dry yet but already it looks quite a bit like a doormat, which is interesting.

Soo... I watched a couple of YoutTube videos on making paper using fabric and I thought I would give it a go;

A pair of socks were going to be thrown away due to holes forming ^

A bit of calico to add to the mix.

The socks did NOT blend well AT ALL! Presumably down to the elastic but it almost murdered my blender so I certainly won't be doing that again! The calico didn't really blend at all so I just shredded up a bit more and threw it on it as you can kind of see here;

The poster currently drying here was something I tried before doing the fabric - attempting to recreate the protest poster I did before (slight adaption) without and glue... I'm not sure if the thick paper will hold but we shall find out...

Pressed paper ^ pretty flat actually! I think the A4 paper will naturally be flatter anyway due to the nature of the shape but this is all pretty flat which is nice.

Well... By this point I had already had to stick a couple of Earths on but they just really weren't secure at all. The yellow paper is pretty well stuck and the card that was directly on the paper was reasonably well stuck as well, there just wasn't enough water to reach through the paper and card which is understandable. Nice idea, would just need a bit of editing.

Down to letter press I went!

I used this font set again as it is pretty much the perfect size.

I played around a bit with white sprit to avoid a heavy block of ink and I think that worked really nicely. Admittedly I struggled a bit to get a good layout for the type as the 'change' on both is done is quite an abstract way. In general I really like the effect of these but they don't really relate to the target audience of children's books... I'm not overly sure that letter press will really but it something that I would like to try.

Since this I have made a number of pieces of paper, all varying success but I looked into seed paper, which has been suggested throughout the project and I have given it a little go;

It's not quite as easy as I thought it was going to be - a lot of the seeds have fallen off the first bit I did because the paper didn't hold enough water for the seeds to sink into so I did the second bit slightly different and move seeds have definitely held but I'm not sure how durable it will be. I watched a couple of YouTube videos after this and I think I would either have to put the seeds directly into the pulp/water mix which would probably result in the seeds blooming before even making it into the paper or I would have to sprinkle the seeds on as the water is draining from the deckle, which would be quite difficult to do by myself. In truth I don't think this idea will work that well for the entire book but I could have a little envelope of seed paper at the end, to use specifically to plant in conjunction with the other activities.

I'm still working on the handmade paper as an idea - it isn't looking overly promising that will work for the final outcome as during a 1-2-1 tutorial with Lee, discussing riso print, it has become rather evident that using my own hand made paper will mean I will have to use hand rendered techniques. This being because the University will probably not allow me to use if with any of their printers, I would have to get handmade paper specifically for printers, which isn't the worst idea but I really wanted this to work as a concept! I will have a bit more of an experiment before making any final decisions but time is ticking so one will have to be made pretty soon!