Week Twenty-Eight | pHAYper

I have begun my experiments with paper making and am loving it. The process driven approach is so appealing after all the angst of staring at paintings wondering why I don’t love them. My first attempt was using whatever was on top of the compost heap, which was a tea bag, egg shells and some brown goo. It was surprisingly easy and the results, whilst clumsy and not really useable for drawing, nonetheless satisfying and in its way beautiful.

My second experiments have been with hay and whilst the hay I used from the compost is too fibrous, even after 2 hours of boiling, it has given me ideas for a more 3D way of thinking about paper, more as a medium than as a substrate. Mind blown.

I have spoken with Library services and Materials and tried to find someone at CSM to teach me to make paper but it seems there is no one, which is difficult to believe but I don’t know how else to find resources at CSM. Instead, I have paid for for an online paper making course with Paper Lab in Berlin on Zoom, which is 27th May and 10th June so timing has been ideal. The approach is experimental and ‘lab thinking’ driven with no recipes or how-to instruction guides but an attitude of curiosity and experimentation. The course is great so far, although I do wish CSM could have offered a bit of knowledge on this. Anyhoo.

My third attempt is with charcoal landscape drawings on shop bought watercolour paper and just recycling them into pulp. The first attempts were so sludgy and as much as I love the idea of using the compost heap it would be good to try making a better pulp so I am going to experiment with some commercial paper types that have been drawn on already as I feel that has a relevance in itself: destroyed landscape drawings. Once I am better at the process I can start to experiment with how to bring in the compost heap. The result was again too lumpy and inelegant but I had the idea to cast some of the bits of compost so I had a go with the eggshells. These attempts were rubbish but I love the ideas coming out of this and will keep experimenting.

Roz has given me lots of ideas about paper making and says I need to soak for days not hours! She also recommended a paper pulper, which I think will help as my kitchen blender isn’t doing the trick.

I have ordered some foam and squeezy bottles to see if I can draw with paper as a medium. Lots of work to do!