More papers from the 2013 Etsy Papermakers Guild swap

I promised some more of the excellent papers which were swapped among the members of the Etsy Papermakers Guild and I have five more to share today.  See the post directly below if you didn't see the first five.

Using Eastern style materials and equipment, Gayle Fitzpatrick sent this washi or hanji style paper.  It is wonderfully thin with a convincing crackle and snap when popped between the fingers. This paper would be a great vehicle for pen and ink, either calligraphy or sumi-e. More of Gayle's papers can be found at Papermaker's Etsy shop.

This embossed sample came from MaidofPaper. She created to basis with recycled papers and used a texture mat when pressing to create the embossment. The recycled papers give this paper a soft hand, yet it doesn't bring to mind "paper towel" like many other recycled pulps.  I can see this being used as an artistic matting around a photograph or an underlayment in the presentation of a letterpress sampler. This would also make excellent material for the collage artist.  I hope MaidofPaper can tell us where we can see more of her work.

Several more paper artists used botanical inclusions. These flower petals of the white shasta daisy are a very striking addition to the yellow recycle papers in this recipe by Betty Hendrick.  The recycled papers must have been of good quality because this sample has a nice tight feel with just a little weight, almost like a linen laid paper. The daisy petals are both worked into the pulp and laid across the face of the sheet, only one had managed to slip its bonds on our piece. This would make a wonderful party or even a casual wedding invitation. Much more of Betty's work at her shop.

While flower petals are pretty, the vegetable patch can be downright beautiful!  Who would have thought about asparagus paper?  Our Phred has made some mustard and lemongrass and even corn paper, but asparagus?  Wow!  Judy Dominic created this mixture of our old friend abaca and asparagus and cooked it all in a pretty traditional Western papermakers method then dried it on glass windows in the sun.  Yum yum, this almost looks good enough to nosh on.... So deeply flecked with green. What a great paper for writing summer sonnets, capturing the poetry of spring robins and jays, or just making your essential grocery list for the May Day Party. Please, Judy, tell us where we can see more of your papers!

Now who doesn't not like blue? This beauty of a sheet is from Betsy Dollar? (sorry if I have the name wrong)  Three layers of pulp sprayed thinly with a different coloration all add up to this gorgeous sheet.  A nice firm hand, eminently writable, this paper could be every persons diary or journal. In different colors it would be a riotous rainbow of a book.  Betsy, tell me what your Etsy store is named!

More to come in the next few days, the goodies just keep coming out of the envelope.

Etsy Papermakers Swap 2013

Well, our genius computer rabbit AlanT managed to get the scanner to communicate with one of the computers and ran up some scans of the beautiful papers Phred received in the paper swap.  So here's a few of the truly outstanding samples.

First off from the swap organizer ElenaMary comes this sweet pulp painting.  The paper is made from abaca (the interior fibers of banana stalks), tea leaves, tissue paper and junk mail.  It has some wonderful texture and the hand is so soft.  Thanx ElenaMary and I always love your interesting shapes.   You can see other creations from ElenaMary at ElenaMary's Etsy Shop

While we are on tea leaves and tissue paper, Barb at  Bbesigns used them and added recycled computer papers, confetti, tea bags and coffee filters to make this colorful fun sheet. the ragged (deckle) edges are a great part of the design.  I can see this great paper used in party announcements and other fun things.

The little hand written note above just barely hints at what is inside this paper.  The rest of the recipe lists lily leaf, evergreen, mimosa blossoms, fresh lavender flowers, almond blossoms, and purple daisy petals.  Such a beautiful mixture and what a great paper for those heartfelt notes to family and friends. More gorgeous flower inclusion papers can be found in Raggedrosepaperworks Etsy Store

For a number of years we have traded papers and glass work with Akua Lezli Hope. This paper comes from some of the hardest to work with plant materials, the yucca and the corn husk.  Both yucca and corn husk make for interesting colors and complexity and depth, but the real challenge is to get the paper to not look like a tamale wrapper.  Boy Akua has certainly mastered this technique. Mixing in a portion of abaca, this paper is nicely stiff but it is not as thick as cardstock and it has a nice smooth and soft hand.  This would make super announcement notes and talk about green!  Thanx Akua for sharing. You can find more from this multi talented person at Akuadesigns

The last green paper sample for today is this wonderful dark card stock created from canna lily, white cotton and that papermakers friend abaca. Patti didn't list her Etsy shop.

2013 Etsy Papermakers Guild Team Swap

The warren is a-buzz with looking at the new papers that Phred received as part of the Etsy 2013 Papermakers Guild Team Swap.  This swap was organized by Elena Mary Siff of ElenaMary at Etsy and supported with a Team Grant from Etsy to pay the return postage.  40 Papermaker Guild members sent samples of their creations and ElenaMary resorted and returned them to the participating members.

Phred submitted 20 some sheets of his orchid papers made from the dried stems and flowers of the orchids in the warren orchid house as well as 20 sheets from his banana plantation.  The banana papers were made from the leaves of the Oroco banana which grows naturally here.

The papers from the Etsy Papermakers are just extraordinary works of art and we will be scanning them and sharing them here on the next week.

Thanx to everyone who participated and shared. I'm telling you the asparagus paper, abaca papers, and all the others are amazing.

6 Players - 6 Months

We'll, Leonardo bunny has joined in a little Round Robin with six other folks. They are making a set of custom pages for each other, one a month for six months. Each player chose their theme and format and the others make them pages for their books.

Leonardo started the round with one if his favorite people, Elizabeth and her theme was Rust. Now if there is one thing we know a lot about living below the ground it is the effects of oxidation on metals.

So Leonardo was casting around and found a great little rusted tin can that was all falling apart and knew he had to include that in his art work.

Here's his description of what he created:

"I love the colors in rust and metals in general, so it was a great gift that E wanted rust pages. I started with a half sheet of Arches 300 lb cold press rough watercolor paper. I tore it down to the 8 1/2 by 11 size and painted it with acrylics. I used raw sienna, burnt umber, mars black, iridescent copper and iridescent b ronze paints to create a basic underpainting on all sheets. Arches is such a fabulous paper, 100% cotton rag mould made in France on machines which have been in production since before the US was a country. The 300 lb (640 g/m2) paper is somewhat like the thickness of multiple cereal boxes combined, but the texture is pure heaven to an artist.

On the sides where I knew I would be including the rusted metals I added a fine coat of a gold glitter acrylic polymer is some sweeping strokes.

I love the Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg and I remembered the one about the hydrangeas, so I painted the turning hydrangeas on the front page to embrace that. The petals were painted with some tiny poly 'berry' brushes and they really came out neat. I bronzed up the leaves a bit to echo the turning of the petals.

Whenever I think about rust I think about diamonds - thanks to Joan Baez. So I made the inside two page spread for the first part of the quote from her song. Using a heavy coating of acrylic polymers I glued the rusted metal to the recto side and used the verso side for the quote. I embedded a few of the crystals on the metals page, but saved most of them for the final verso.

The song chronicles a time in her life when Bob Dylan (a former lover) called one evening from a booth in the Midwest. She originally ended the song with the phrase, "if you're offering Diamonds and Rust, I already paid." In the past few years she has changed that lyric to read, "I'll take the diamonds."

So my pages take the best of some wonderful poetry and include a simple composition, but complex media choice to bring some diamonds to a good friend I have never met.

I also included one of my signature ATC type cards which are painted on retail store gift cards and a candle shelter made from handmade batik papers.

Thanks E for inviting me to participate in the group."

Leonardo Rabbit

(click the pictures for a closer look)

Zig Zag Binding Tutorial

Dymphie has been kind enough to share her video on completing the Zig Zag binding. Subtitles are in English and Dutch. I'll post a stitching diagram later.

Tools of a papermaker

We have some inventive souls here in Surfbunny Warren. Last week young Alexander was twiddling his thumbs watching Phred and crew go through all the gyrations to cook some vegetable matter to make some paper pulp. After soaking the goo in lime water and soda ash it needed to be rinsed, BUT the rinse water couldn't just go out in the garden or the stream as it was far too alkali. So Phred was taking little bits at a time and using a cast off kitchen strainer from Mrs. Farmer Brown's trash pile. Well, next think you know Alexander has hopped on out to the used stuff pile where Farmer Brown keeps things that might one day be useful and low and behold he ups and invents an industrial strainer for Phred and company. Two buckets, some leftover curtain material and a few clamps and now Phred can strain 5 gallons of goo at a time with the rinse water all captured to take to the proper part of the field. Needless to say, Alexander is the current hero of the papermakers.

Accordion Books in Kalamazoo

The Kalamazoo Book Arts Center in Kalamazoo Michigan has a call out for artist accordion style books.

Phred made up just the thing today and we have inserted it into the mail system. The paper is all handmade right here in the warren. Banana fibers from the plantation were cooked and chopped and formed into the luscious cover papers. The pages are a mix of banana fiber and recycled office paper from Farmer Brown's recycle box. A small bit of blue construction paper was mixed into one batch to make the pale blue pages.
The book is bound with three pamphlet style signatures totaling 96 pages. Phred calls this Canoe Notes and hopes it will receive a warm reception in Michigan.

Paper on books and books on paper

Well Phred has me really going here on all this paper making and book making - oops, sorry Phred, "Book Binding" - stuff. Seems a day can't go by now but Farmer Brown is walking down the lane to the mailbox and coming back mumbling to himself about where in tarnation are these packages coming from and why?

He mumbles into the dooryard and places the packages on the little shelf in the mud room and calls out to Mrs. Farmer Brown, "Here's another one Hon. What you think these crazy people are up to?"

She just kind of grunts a reply and then everyone seems to forget about the whole thing.

Phred meanwhile has his ear peeled for the sound of one of his Baker's Feet Irregulars to come charging down the warren and into the book binding shop to give him the breathless news that "another one has arrived."

Then they call me down from whereever I'm contemplating the proper wax to use for the current temperature and humidity level and give me my orders to go up to the house and bring that package back here where it belongs.

Well I guess I've carried a few things in my life and perhaps helped an item or two move from here to over there without too much attention called and so I must be the perfect stooge for this ongoing game. I'm noticing though that a couple of the youngsters are watching my every move and it's almost like they are in pantomime of what I'm about to do or just have done. Got to watch them or they'll be trying their hand at the moving game perhaps a bit before they're ready.

Anyway, back to the packages. Seems like they all are coming from the Amazon or some such. Not so big, but solid and heavy, like there were books or something.

So one day I just stood there after handing it to Phred and seeming like daring him to not rip it open while I watched. He couldn't hold out very long and soon enough he showed me that I was indeed hauling coal to Newcastle so to speak. Yeap, I'm bring books into the bindery, the place where Phred makes books, the place where he tells me books are flying out to new homes all around the world.

I do admit he had me haul two packages down to the mailbox where the postman made them move from here to somewhere else, but seems as though we are getting more books in than books are moving out.

Oh well, I guess some fella named Keith Smith must need to get some lettuce too, he sure packs a wallop in his books for shear numbers of diagrams and curlicues and needle in and needle outing he describes in his books. Guess we've got Vol 1 and 3 now and Phred seems pretty keen to find vol 2, 4 and 5 soon it seems. Real catchy titles too. Non Adhesive Binding - Books Without Paste or Glue Volume 1 - now there's one sure to keep you up at night until you get it finished!

As for the outgoing? Well if the books coming in are about paper, the books going out are on paper. This week we shipped a set of ten to a gallery down in LA. ECO-logical Gallery I guess they call it. They specialize in reusing things in new ways and I guess Phred's Digital Journals with the computer disks and funny parts were a big hit in the recycle-reuse-repurpose world.

Also one of the painter rabbits' little canvases went off to a new home up in the cold weather country.

So, paper in and paper out. Not as catchy as wax on - wax off, but hey I can only supply one memorable quote per lifetime. Wonder what ever happened to that Okinawan guy I used to surf with. He sure was into those tiny trees............

Surfbunny

Here's the pics of one of Phred's Digital Journals:

Paper making 101

Phred asked me to tell you a bit about paper making and the problems I've been having. I have been learning from scratch, pulling my whiskers out with worry - why wont it work?

I guess I better start at the beginning.

Paper is made of fibers, and being on a high fiber diet we have lots of fibers in all the warrens, the fine linen Linum usitatissimum the ladies have been weaving has wonderful long fibers, but it is way to valuable to experiment with. Carrot tops are OK but there is a lot of work and little paper making usable fiber. One thing that is in abundance is corn husks, guess humans and bunnies alike don't eat the husks of corn.

So following the directions from one of our tomes I found I had a lot of steps to go through to get usable paper making fiber from corn husks.

First you have to cook the husks, 12 hours later they were still too tough to do much with. Well back to burrowing through the library. Ah, you need an alkali to speed up the process. Soda ash from burnt wood ashes works and Farmer Jones heats his house with wood and has this big pile of ash...

I won't go into all the detail on how we finally made the stuff except to say it was a long hot day.

Cook the husks in soda ash and water, 3 hours later the the husk fibers are soft and pull apart.

The liquid went from being crystal clear to dark brown and smelt a little sweet, but what to do with it?

Well that started a long discussion among the brew bunnies, the baker bunnies and Aunt Aretha, our resident canning and pickling maven. It ended up we neutralized the alkali with acid - vinegar to be precise - if we keep this up Farmer Jones and his wife are going to wonder where all the pickling juice went, Aunt Aretha warned me she'd be making more than paper outta my hide if the pickling storehouse ended up getting a lock down right before cucumber harvest!

After you cook the fiber you have to rinse, then rinse again until the water runs clear, the underground stream the washer bunnies use was excellent for this step - those bunnies are pretty smart too, they had little grove shelves all worked into the stream bed and bank for sitting and holding pots and even a spot to keep their "refreshments" cool. I think I have to come back down here sometime and see just what those bunnies have found to need cooling.

After rinsing you have to beat the fibers, with all the energy the youngsters have you would think that was an easy thing to do. It took a little creative thinking but we put the fiber between some plastic and had them youngsters run and jump and hop 'til it was beaten to a pulp.

Then take the pulp and suspend it in water and use an old window screen to make sheets. Getting the thickness right took a little practice.

After forming the sheets they had to be pressed to get the water out and then dried. Took some thinking here too to get the pressing figured out, but the carpenter crew had an extra couple of barn boards and there was a rock or two we rolled on top and then the whole thing kind'a blended into Farmer Jones ol' "someday might be useful pile" out behind the machine shed and the sun did our work of drying.

From 1 pound of corn husks I got 12 thin sheets of paper.

I'll get Colin to take a picture and post here this afternoon. Not sure what we're going to do with the paper yet. Seems like it would make a great painting surface, or maybe note cards. Real pretty gold color and nice texture. Boy, it all makes me hungry for some of Juanita's tamales, maybe I'll hop over to the cooks den and see what's on the stove.........

BB