Home Page  

       Tutorials:

       Papermaking

           Papermaking links

           Paper casting

           Pulp paintings

        

Once you have mastered the art of converting scrap paper into usable pulp, and making sheets of paper, you can start to have fun with pulp paintings.

Overlays

Very thin sheets of paper can be placed on top of one another to form one cohesive sheet. Making the top sheet very thin, or with holes in it will allow the bottom sheet to show through.  Once the top sheet has been applied, but while it is still wet, areas of it can be teased off with a cocktail stick or skewer.  Try layering string between the two sheets, and then pulling them out.  If you leave the paper to dry for a while before pulling the string out you will get different effects. Small sheets of paper formed in pastry cutters, or in home-made moulds, can be applied to a bottom sheet. Pictures can be built up in much the same way as children’s temporary felt pictures are made. This is a nice way to make greetings cards and postcards.

Mixing Pulp Colours

Batches of coloured pulp can be mixed together to create new colours in exactly the same way as you mix paint.  Don’t try to mix too many, or you will end up with a sludgy brown. Different textures of pulp will retain their colours when mixed, whereas pulp of equal textures will blend completely. Thus, you can mix a smooth green pulp with a coarse pink, and get green paper with pink speckles.  Mixing green and pink smooth pulp will give an unremarkable beige.

Making Paintings

Choosing colours for a paper pulp painting is the same as choosing a palette for conventional art.  Mix up a pleasing assortment of colours, in either bright or pastel shades.  Include a range of dark and light tones.  Using complimentary colours will give your pictures more ‘zing’.

You will need a very smooth pulp consistence to be able to make delicate marks.  More textured pulp can be used for large areas.  To obtain a range of tones in the same colour, you can mix up a large batch of white, and a large batch of solid colour, and then blend small bowls of varying quantities.

Use a small spoon, or a turkey baster to apply the colours to your screen, building up layers as you go.  It is probably easiest to try out an abstract design first, then move on to more representational subjects.  You can add leaves, twigs, un-pulped paper, pieces of plastic etc to the pictures, as you would to a collage.

The work of someone who has mastered this art can be seen on this link :

www.megblack.com/index

 

---