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Sep
7
Changing Seasons
September 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
[process, essay]
by Nancy S.M. Waldman
Hi everyone. Welcome to September. Summer here in North America is fast waning—even though where I am in Nova Scotia, September is one of the best weather months.
I’ve been feeling quite ambivalent about the PCQ over the summer. There are lots of new visitors and subscribers and readers which is wonderfully gratifying and fun for me—Welcome to all of you!!—but I haven’t posted frequently or sent out emails which made me feel a little guilty. On the other hand, I’ve had a great summer for creativity so I felt that I was working to recharge my batteries, build up my reserves and just change things up for a while. As we know, it’s easy to get in a rut. Even if it’s a creative one that works for us, it’s still a rut and ruts tend to get deeper and less roomy the longer we’re in them. Sooner or later, we have to climb out, stretch and look around for a renewed way of being.
Summer is the best time for me to do this.
My husband and I have an old Victorian-era house that we’re fixing up (the exterior), so we have a small window of opportunity for working outside. August is prime time. It felt really *right* to be outside doing physical work. I had spent so much time at my computer last year that I was beginning to have nerve pain from too much sitting! I thought the physical strain might be problematic for an old gal like me who’d been so sedentary of late, but not only did it feel great (okay, there were mornings when I woke up in considerable pain—but it was the *good* kind of pain that went away fast!), but it got rid of my sciatica almost immediately! 
More than all that, it reminded me that as much as I love the computer—The PCQ, the writing, the digital photo work, the website design, the computer art—I also love other things that I’ve been neglecting. I haven’t been playing the piano and will soon loose what little ability I have if I don’t remember to practice. I love cooking, baking, yoga, gardening, reading, quilting, photography, painting and more. None of those can be done while sitting at the computer.
It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And balance, like most things in life, isn’t static. It requires constant adjustment. Think of a tight-rope walker. A short walk high above the ground requires untold numbers of constant muscular changes to negotiate the span. No matter how many times the acrobat has walked the rope, no matter how talented or experienced, his awareness of balance must be at the forefront of his mind every single time.
As we grow and evolve, we’re the same. We don’t get to a point where balance becomes automatic. Our lives will always be susceptible to being off-kilter. And, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If we come across some new passion, there’s not a thing wrong with throwing ourselves into it even if we neglect certain other things for that new activity! However, when we realize there are beginning to be negative side effects from our tilted world, (like nerve pain 
from sitting at a computer for hours a day!) we still and always have to stop, take stock and see what we can do to re-achieve balance.
What can get easier over time, is our awareness of the need for balance. For me, the seasons help. While I no longer have kids (in the house) who go back to school, September is a change nonetheless. I like to use the different seasons to trigger my awareness of how I’m spending my time in the context of ALL the things I love to do and want to accomplish.
What about you? What triggers your awareness that it’s time to readjust the balance in your life? Take care all and happy change of seasons wherever you are!
Aug
15
"The world looks after artists"
August 15, 2007 | 2 Comments
[-painting, process, interview-]
Interview with artist, Donna Marsh
by Nancy Waldman
 what I’m reading; oil on canvas, 8 x 16; © 07 donna marsh all rights res. |
Donna is an internet friend whose juicy paintings have inspired me to begin painting again after a long time away from it. I knew that she had stopped painting for years and has returned to it fairly recently, so I asked her questions that are pertinent to this process of picking up a “lost art” and also ones that her paintings made me wonder about. I share my questions and Donna’s answers with you in the expectation that there are others out there who have gotten away from a creative activity that they love; those who need a push to get back to it. |
Whether or not you’re in that situation, I know you’ll enjoy reading Donna’s story, her thoughts about painting and of course, seeing a few of Donna’s more recent paintings. If you are thinking about picking up a lost art, here is your nudge in the right direction.
green room with mirror; oil on canvas, 14 x 18; © 2007 donna marsh all rights reserved
What got you back into painting after a long time away from it?
I was working as a cashier at a grocery store. An old painter who has a name around here started talking art to me whenever I tallied his oranges. He gave me a book of his paintings. I also accepted an invitation to go see some of them. This was really exciting for me because I hadn’t thought about painting in a long time. After two years in a college fine arts program life moved on the way it does and I just forgot about it. I never really decided to stop. I just forgot I did it. When Mr. Nemeth found out I had bothered to study he wanted to see my paintings. I didn’t have any. He said, “But you don’t stop. You never stop. You can take a rest sometimes but you don’t stop.” Then he never stopped asking for that painting until I produced it. He had an answer for everything too. When I told him I didn’t have any paint he picked a day to go downtown and buy some. He gave me brushes. Later on he advised me to quit my job because I wasn’t painting enough.
I told him I needed the money. His answer, “The world looks after artists.” What a wonderful way to think. I thought it was a bit nuts but he was born in 1919. He had to know a thing or two.
It was like coming back to life to paint again.
houses, Dorval; oil on canvas, 20 x 20, © 2007 donna marsh all rights reserved
What’s been most difficult about getting back into it?
There was a lot of fear in the beginning. People see paintings. They’re hard to hide. Maybe I didn’t know how anymore and people would see that. I had to get over that “doing things right” anxiety because to get it back and then go forward, I had to be willing to let things go wrong. Also, painting is messy and takes up a lot of physical space. I had to learn how to take that space and defend that space because it was important. The same applied to the time. Defending the time has probably been the most difficult part of getting back into it. In school I was studying so nobody ever questioned it. It was hard to teach others and myself that “I’m home painting” does not equal “I’m doing nothing please interrupt me.”
balconies and fire escapes; oil on canvas, 30 x 36; © 2007 donna marsh, all rights reserved
Do you have any tips for other painters in the same situation?
People actually have opinions about what painters should paint. This can be a shock at first. But if they’re really dying for a certain image to come into being they can go paint it themselves. Paint what you want and don’t worry about it making sense or fitting in with what’s going on at the other easels or even fitting in with what you most admire. Sometimes these things don’t work out to be the same. I can sit for hours in front of large minimalist works that appear to be one grey, taking in the sweep of the brushstrokes and subtle gradations of light on the work. Though it wouldn’t excite me to paint that myself, I’m glad it excited Charles Gagnon enough to paint it. It’s taken me a few years to know what I want to paint. I find if it excites me I’m on the right track. Execution becomes a fascinating challenge.
let’s get lost; oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches; © 2007 donna marsh, all rights reserved
Do you paint from photos? what’s in front of you? memory? imagination?
I paint from photos and from what’s in front of me. I’m interested in painting more from memory. I think there’s always imagination in a painting. I admit I’ve been working out some guilt over the use of photos. I wasn’t trained that way. It wasn’t allowed. But I like to have something to look at as a starting point and I found the terrain too limited for what I wanted to do if I only painted “in situ”. I still enjoy getting out for some plein air work or I’ll drag the outdoor easel over to something in the house that interests me. There’s a different feeling to translating space that’s all around me and in front of me. I like to stay in touch with that.
a hotel window; oil on canvas, 20 x 24; © 2007 donna marsh, all rights reserved
In what ways has your painting changed over the years?
The big difference between now and then (when I stopped) is that my colours are brighter and I’m less inhibited. I like to feel the paint and really muck around in it. Impasto is no longer a stranger to me. In the years since I’ve restarted, I find my understanding of what I want to paint has become much clearer and the paintings make more sense to me as a group. Also as I gain more control over the paint I get looser.
drive-thru service; oil on canvas, 22 x 28; © 2007 donna marsh, all rights reserved
And now, my turn—why Donna’s work is so inviting and appealing to me.
Part of it is what Donna talks about when she mentions Charles Gagnon. Often what we like is something that we would never choose to paint ourselves. I am drawn to Donna’s urban and suburban landscapes because I wouldn’t think to paint them but I like seeing them. Her use of thick paint and bright colours for these seemingly drab subjects makes me want to re-think them. It makes me believe that I haven’t really seen what’s there.
I am also drawn in by the energy in these paintings. The brush strokes, the lines drawn into them, the runny paint, all impart the bodily energy that Donna uses when she paints. The paint may have dried and hardened but the energy is still there as I look at them.
I also notice space, or lack of it, in Donna’s work. In ‘houses, dorval’ we get a long wide open view. The paint is applied going away from us, stretching out in response to the scene. In ‘balconies and fire escapes’ the lack of space is part of what makes it all so effective. The representation of over-lapping structures makes me feel the crowdedness of a city.
Being representational scenes, there is also light to consider. With Donna’s paintings, the light is conveyed through colour. I don’t get the feeling that there is any separation as she paints, between the objects and the atmosphere and quality of light that is with them. This gives the a glow to the work that seems to radiate from within.
Energy, colour, looseness, inner light. It’s not ‘safe’ painting and, for me, that’s why they work.
Thanks, Donna for sharing your work and your thoughts with us. You can see more of Donna’s paintings at her flickr site. Donna lives with her family in Quebec, Canada where she just manages to carve out time and space to paint.
Aug
1
c-ART-egories
August 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment
[-warm-up, drawing-]
Here’s a creative warm-up exercise that uses categories.
Choose a category each day to draw in your journal. Divide your paper into 8 – 12 small sections. Decide on the length of time you want to devote to this. My suggestion is to start with no more than ten minutes. Quicker sketches will loosen you up. Later on, you may want to devote more time to the sketches.
Draw a version of your chosen category in each of the sections.
The idea is to warm-up your creative brain by doing quick, non-threatening, simple drawings. Doing a lot of drawings of one thing helps you explore your visual knowledge of that category. You will find that you’re going to learn a lot about yourself, your visual memory, your ability to express a simple thing quickly and you’ll find yourself being more observant of that category once you’ve done the exercise.
Here’s my “Fruit” category page:
As you see, this isn’t great art. They are quick simple, even iconic sketches. And yet, I found out a lot from doing them.
I found out quickly that to distinguish between a drawing of an apple, a peach, a plum and even a lemon is tricky, but can be done. I found out that though I have removed plenty of them, I couldn’t, when I started, remember what the stem of a pineapple looks like. I found out that in order to make a peach look like a peach, you have to turn your pencil on its side to get a softer edge. I remembered that the skin of a lemon is pitted and that’s a bit of a different pencil mark that the tiny seeds of a strawberry. I found out that in order to sketch a bunch of grapes, it’s easier (and more fun) to sketch the dark, negative spaces that just draw the overlapping grapes. I found that sometimes a fruit is best depicted by the drippy, wetness that ends up on the surface below it. I found out that it was hard for me to come up with twelve fruits and that I didn’t seem to have a clue what shape a fig is.
Try it. It’s fun and you’ll be amazed how much it will stretch you.
Here’s a list to get you going:
|
Fruit Trees Kitchen utensils Food Dogs Cats Fish Furniture Cars Containers Light/heat sources Windows Residences Animals Clothes Birds Flowers Sea life Things people carry Things on the floor Things you see at the beach Baby things Teenager’s things Things in the sky Hats Toys Vehicles Weather Bad Habits Good Habits Emotions |
I threw in the last three to remind you that these don’t have to be solid objects. But stick with the simpler ones at first. See what happens. After doing these for a while, revisit a category so you can see how the first sketches compare with ones you do after sensitizing yourself to this process and to thinking visually.
And, let us know what you learned by doing this exercise!
Jul
30
Creatively Practical Painting
July 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
[-process, painting-]
Hi all! I took some time off from posting during July. It’s been good to get outside and away from the computer. One of the things I’ve been doing is painting—but not my usual kind.
We are finishing up painting the roof line of our old house. This project started in 2002 when my husband put a pitched roof on the previously flat-roofed house. That gave us five new gables. (They are all different sizes so, in order to be able to refer to them without confusion, I dubbed them the Grandfather, Papa, Mama, Teenager and Baby Gables.)
We decided to give the outside of the house more detailing and a lot more colour! The painting started in 2003 with the largest of the gables. We are only now back around to where we started with the last little bit of trim near the roof. (Then we have the rest of the house to paint….after we put on a new front porch!)
The painting is, as you can see, fairly intricate and calls for precision. As I paint, I can’t help but be pulled back to other times in my life where I’ve used paint brushes on a daily basis to do art, not house painting. The feel of paint leaving a paint brush is very enticing, even when all you’re trying to do is paint a straight line.
The process puts me back in touch with that realm of paint and colour, edges and transitions, the build-up of colour and illusion of light that all go into painting a picture on paper or canvas. It is attracting me back to something that I once spent a lot of time doing but have been away from for a long time.
So what do I do with this urge that I’m not only feeling, but—now with this post—acknowledging in public?
It would be easiest for me to let it pass. That I have other interesting and important things to do with my time, other than paint, is true. That summer is busy enough without starting in on another creative pursuit is logical. But the real reason I have for resisting the urge to put paint on paper or canvas is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid of not being inspired once I get to it. I’m afraid that the urge is best felt and not acted on. I’m afraid that what was once a passion of mine, will not recur for me if I try it again. I’m afraid that what I paint will be unsatisfying and mediocre. All of these things and more have kept me away from painting for years now.
But here’s the other side of fear. One of the big reasons I started Practically Creative was to use it as a fulcrum (“an agent through which vital powers are exercised.”) in continuing to work through blocks and indecisions and self-defeatist issues that have always been a part of my creativity. I have fewer problems than I used to, but—as this as yet un-acted on urge shows—those issues never fully recede.
I’ll paint something other than my house today (it’s raining today, anyway). I’ll dust off some tubes of paint, pick a favourite brush or two and I’ll start small. I can’t promise myself much but I think I can manage enjoyment of the seductive feel of paint coming off a brush.
Then, I’ll see what appears.
Happy last days of July!
Here’s a post from my blog that has photos and details of the house painting project: The Up Side of Outside
Another post about the history of our old house: Of Things Dreamed Of
Jun
30
private Wonderland
June 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
[-short fiction, collaboration-]
by Indie
Sara: How did you get here?
Boy: I followed you.
Sara: Impossible.
Boy: I only had to close my eyes the moment you vanished.
Silence for a moment. Sara in her private Wonderland was right to be astonished. “By Invitation Only” was the law of her fantasy realm, yet here was the boy, and somehow he had found a way in.
“Run that way,” Sara pointed off in the direction of the pink sun. He was off immediately. “But he’ll be back,” she thought to herself, “when I turn the path the opposite way.” Now she pondered the uses of a boy in her Wonderland. “He could put the leaves back on the trees.” They were constantly falling to the ground whenever the trees snapped themselves to attention. “Or put me on the slide, in moments I am not.” She slid the blue slide down to the gravelly ground. “Now come back,” she spoke.
“Here I am!” the boy announced, “I found a tablecloth. We can have a picnic!”
“What will we eat?” she smiled coyly, “There’s no food here.” There really was nothing. If Sara became hungry, she merely forgot more of the real world, to notice, moments later, that her socks became striped or a wall sprouted dots in shades of primary colors. The boy went away, then returned a while later with a handful of jelly beans. Sara was trying to catch her breath after swinging a complete Ferris-wheel cycle on the swing. He let the jelly beans fall and helped her, heading off the long strip of breath that looked like a rosy red ribbon flapping in the chaotic wind. What a mad dance it was! Never more than two feet on the ground between the two of them, and sometimes none, and neither in reach of the other – nor the ribbon. But finally they cornered the renegade breath. Sara snatched one end, the boy the other, and they shared it between the two of them. Afterwards, contented and waiting for something to say, they noticed the spot where the jelly beans had fallen. A spiral of cotton candy had sprouted into the strawberry sky!
“You can’t catch me” Sara teased, or maybe it was the boy. They chased each other first one way, then the other, all the way up the candy, pausing for little bites along the way, for the running was making them hungry. When they reached the top they were holding hands and stickily sweet all over.
There they sat, on top of the Wonderland world, breathing their breaths together. “I still would like to know how you slipped into my Wonderland,” Sara persisted.
“It was easy,” the boy answered while glancing down at rainbow meadows. “This whole fantasy is my imagination.”
She smiled with primal joy, and joined his gaze into the fairy-tale lands below, “I knew there had to be a logical explanation.”
Story #377
Indie, © 2005 – 2007 all rights reserved – originally published October 13, 2006 in The Synchronicity of Indeterminancy
Thanks to dark firefly for sharing her photograph with Indie and now with us!
Please see Indie’s other contributions to The PCQ: Hacker Baby, Vicious Pirates , The Great War of 2015
Indie’s blog, The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy, is an experiment in creativity with daily posts of an original one-minute short story inspired by a found photo. All stories are fictional. The idea is based on the Indeterminacy recordings by John Cage, pairing one-minute short stories with random sounds. His daily stories can be found at: indeterminancy.blogspot.com His blog was recently honoured as a Blogger Blog of Note. Congratulations Indie!
about the writer:
Indie is an American – originally from Cincinnati, Ohio – living in Europe since the 80′s. He enjoys avant garde, dadaistic, and surrealistic art, literature and music. He has a special love for comedy. Indie holds a masters in psychology and is employed as knowledge engineer, designing natural language dialogue systems. He’s lucky enough to be married to a wonderful muse and has a son 10 years of age.
Jun
30
other-handed
June 30, 2007 | 8 Comments
[-journaling, c-mindfulness-]
Next time you are writing in your journal, switch the pen to your other hand and write.
I know. I know. You can’t write with your other hand. Never mind. Go on and do it anyway.
Writing with our non-dominant hand can have interesting results because it confuses our brain. Part of that protest you just put up about not wanting to write with the wrong hand was your brain’s way of keeping things predictable. That’s okay. That’s its job. Let’s face it: we function because our brains are in charge. Our brains do a phenomenal job of keeping the world understandable and keeping our bodies and behaviours in sync with that world. But the parts of our brain that are so effective at everyday life, may not be the parts that give us the best results when it comes to pure creativity.
Since creativity may be useless, nonsensical, playful, wordless, metaphorical, musical, messy, and so on, the practical brain that serves us so well, needs a little nudge to get out of the way while we create. Try writing with your ‘wrong’ hand to make this happen.
Why does this work? Our non-dominant hand is linked to the non-dominant hemisphere of our brain. Some studies indicate that one hemisphere is active when using the dominant hand but both hemispheres are activated when the non-dominant hand is used. Either way, many people find that they ‘think differently’ or that surprising things get written down when using the non-dominant hand.
I should caution you that therapists [link no longer valid] have found that some people can access primitive and raw emotions, so I am not suggesting here that this be used as therapy. If you are interested in that, please be sure that you’re working with a trained professional first.
The use of this technique here is suggested as a warm-up to further creative activity. It’s suggested as a way to circumvent the linear part of our brain and get into the wordless, metaphorical, visual part.
There are other ways that one can use this technique. If you have an everyday situation that needs problem-solving, try writing about it with your non-dominant hand. See if you can come up with a more ‘creative’ solution than you’ve considered previously.
Another possibility is to use it when you want to remember or learn something new. I have a friend who wants to improve her vocabulary. While she’s having her coffee each morning she copies words from the dictionary using her ‘wrong’ hand. She swears that her memory for the words is more reliable now. She even reports beating her husband in SCRABBLE for the first time after doing this for a few weeks. Now that’s worth something! 
Remember…both sides of the brain being are being activated. She just might have something here.
Try it. Politely and gently—using bad handwriting—ask your everyday brain to step aside for awhile while creativity and new ways of thinking are explored.
See why R-mindfulness has changed to C-mindfulness here at The PCQ. Click on C-mindfulness in our topics to read about other ways of accessing your C-mind.
Jun
30
Blue Moon Factoids
June 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
[-crackles!-]
Today is the second full moon of June if you live in the Eastern Hemisphere. For those of us in the Western Hemisphere, it was May 31, 2007. Since I seem to have missed it last month, I’m celebrating it with those of you in the other half of the world. Either way, we both get a full moon [just barely] in June [except Aukland and thereabouts!].
The second full moon in a month is called a Blue Moon.
Blue Moons come around every 2.7 years or 41 times a century.
Even rarer is a year with a double Blue Moon. Those only occur 4.5 times a century or every 19 years or so.
The last Blue Moon was in July 2004.
The next Blue Moon will be December 2009.
Blue Moons have nothing to do with the look of the moon, though on a gorgeous summer night in June we might be excused if we imagined a special hue. Moons do spur people to be creative:
Movies:
Moonstruck
Joe Versus the Volcano
Paper Moon
Apollo 13
Man on the Moon
Walk on the Moon
Songs:
Blue Moon
Moon Over Miami
Moon River
Moondance
Moonlight in Vermont
Dancing in the Moonlight
Moonshadow
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Moonage Daydream
There’s a Moon in the Sky
Dark Side of the Moon
Bad Side of the Moon
It’s Only a Paper Moon
Harvest Moon
Song about the Moon
Ticket to the Moon
Heading to the Moon
Open your curtains as you sleep tonight and let the light shine down upon you. Maybe you’ll feel more creative because of it!
My Blue Moon photosandwich above was made with the help of hypergenesb who allows his photos to be used under a creative commons license. Thank you! I had a fun time playing with your beautiful photo. On his flickr page, hypergenesb has fully annotated his moon. Click the image to see it and his other photos!
Jun
30
Paper Artists
June 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
[-art, handmade paper-]
My own beginner’s interest in the possibilities of handmade paper led me to start looking at artist’s who work with this medium. Below are works from three who take the raw material of handmade paper and make it into much more.
The variety is indeed inspiring.
© 2007 elaine kerr, all rights reserved
Elaine Kerr does mixed media art. One of the mediums she’s turned her artistry to is handmade paper. She uses the pulp in molds to make paper objects. Above you see the beautiful result of one of her shell pieces. Visit her at Art of the Found Object.
Iablotchki is an artist and art teacher in Russia.
© 2007 iablotchki, all rights reserved
Her delicate leaves [top] are a described as “the author’s book of verses of Russian poet Pushkin, Autumn.”
© 2007 iablotchki, all rights reserved
As you can see above, she seems to literally paint with paper in her representational paper art. Iabltochki also does amazing tapestries. Please visit her flickr site, here. And her personal site here.
“no sand in my sandals, no stones in my shoes” – detail – © 2007 rose clancy, all rights reserved
Rose Clancy does vessels in paper mache that she makes mainly from egg cartons. She also uses other materials such as found objects and cardboard in her unique work. Her bas relief Sunscenes below are gracing our Home page this week. Please visit her blog: Paper Works and her flickr site.
“sunscapes” 6 x 6, paper mache with found objects, © 2006 – 2007 rose clancy, all rights reserved
Thanks to all contributors!
The PCQ’s Paper Making Tutorial for beginners
Jun
30
paper-making
June 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
[-craft, tutorial-]
Making handmade paper is an artform. In the hands of an experienced artist, the paper can be thin and smooth, molded to wonderful shapes or scenes and made into elaborate sculptures and vessels.
However, the good news is that making paper is just as rewarding for a beginner.
Last summer, I finally—after many years of saying I wanted to—made paper. My first attempts were so fun that I soon organized another day, inviting my friend, Sherry, her two kids–Mark and Emily, and neice, Meggan to come along. I’m including some of the many photographs of the two sessions here.
Papermaking is messy and time-consuming. Some internet sites tell you that it can be done in two hours. This is optimistic to say the least. My advice for your first time: set aside most of a day.
I also recommend that you do it outside or in a garage (unless you’re lucky enough to have a large waterproof studio). It can be done inside but then you have a bigger mess to clean up so add that time into your planning. Also, because your hands are in water or are wet most of the time, it needs to be hot weather.
Beginners should probably stick to making paper from paper. Below are some links for making paper out of plant materials but the process is much more elaborate.
There is also preparation to be done before the big day. Below is a list of materials to be gathered.
MATERIALS
Paper torn into small pieces
White or neutral paper -
- computer paper with no or little print
- napkins and paper towels
- cardboard boxes (must be unwaxed and pre-soaked)
- paper egg cartons
– paper rolls
– greeting cards (may also need to be pre-soaked)
– magazines, newspapers
(note: the more ink on the paper, the darker and grayer/browner your finished product will be)
Colored paper
- construction paper
- tissue paper
Mold and deckle
If you read different sets of instructions, these terms get confusing.
The mold is usually a wooden frame with screen stapled or tacked to it, though it can be anything that you can attach a screen to. If you have no wood or construction skills (though tacking four pieces of wood together really doesn’t take much skill—you can do it!) you can use a sturdy wooden picture frame. If you are doing this with others, you’ll need a mold for each person.
The screen should be rust-proof (plastic or fiberglass) and should be stretched tightly over the wood so that it won’t sag when the pulp is on it. The mold/deckle will limit the size of paper you can make, but don’t get too ambitious the first time out. I suggest no larger than 9 x 11 and 5 X 7 is large enough to try and see how you like it.
Most of the time, the deckle is referred to as a separate frame that is placed over the mold to shape the edges of the paper. It is not necessary to have a separate deckle but if you are making molds anyway, try it. Make a separate frame, slightly smaller than the mold. The deckle does not have screen on it. Molds can be built with a little more sophistication.
Dishpan or tub
this needs to be considerably larger than your mold/deckle as you will be immersing the frame into the tub. It must give you room for the mold, your hands on either side and some room to maneuver the mold back and forth.
Blender -
preferably NOT one you want to use later that day to make Margaritas. You’ll be tired. Go out and pay someone else make the Margaritas. 
Absorbent materials – after putting the pulp on the mold, you will need something to absorb the excess water
- sponges
- flannel or felt
- paper towels – the raw material for more paper!
Pressing materials – to flatten, smooth and press out the excess water
- Formica
- plexiglass
- screen
Embellishments
- threads, ribbons
- decorative paper
- leaves, seeds, grasses
- glitter
- magazine words
- drawings
- food colouring
Optional
- gelatin or liquid starch
This is helpful if you will be using your paper for inks that might otherwise run.
PROCESS
This is a craft you have to get into in order to find your own way. I found it confusing to read all the different instructions, but once I began, I was able to proceed by *educated trial and error* and I got results that were satisfying.
1. Tear up paper, soak for a while depending on its thickness/sturdiness
2. Put it in a blender with three times as much water as paper bits; blend until it is mushy. Don’t worry about the amount of water to paper as this can be adjusted at any time. This base is called slurry.
3. Blend up enough to put in your dishpan or tub
4. Add coloured paper (tissue paper works great for bright colours) or food colouring for quicker bright colours.
5. Add bits of embellishments to the slurry if you like (for less randomness, these can be placed on the mold later before you press the paper)
6. Dip the mold into the slurry. If you’re using a deckle frame, simply hold it on top of the mold. It’s purpose is to give a more exact shape and finished edge to the paper. Slide the mold/deckle side-to-side to get an even covering over the screen.
7. Lift it out.
I used two pieces of wood resting on the dishpan to catch the excess water.
In the picture above, you can see the deckle frame (the one with no screen) resting on top of the mold (the one that the slurry sits on when you lift it out). Once the mold is covered with paper pulp and out of the water, you can remove and set aside the deckle.
8. Press the paper to flatten and remove the water. I found that a separate piece of screen worked best, but this does leave the paper with the criss-cross surface design which you might not like. The trick is to find something that will take out the water but not lift up the paper. Paper towels, sponges, rags, cloth diapers, flannel, and felt can be used.
9. Once the excess water is out, gently lift off the screen (if that is what you’re using), turn the mold over and flatten the paper onto a fabric, Formica or paper material. I ended up using paper towels because I needed it to dry quickly. The thinner the paper you’ve made, the more delicate the operation to get it off the mold’s screen in one piece. You’ll have to find your own way but it helps to have as much water as possible absorbed. I found flicking the back of the mold’s screen with my fingernail was a good way to loosen it without tearing it up. With the thickness of the paper illustrated here, we had no problems getting it off in one piece.
10. Wait for it to dry (can be stacked between paper towel or absorbent fabric when almost dry).
11. Use, as you like!
Here are some of the fun things we made:
Nancy’s with grass embellishment
Sherry’s with rice paper bits and mixed slurry colours
Meggan’s with rick-rack and magazine words
Emily’s with magazine cut-outs and ribbon
Mark’s with pretty much everything
a day’s work
lovely deckled edges
mark, meggan and emily at the end of a creative day
See our Paper Artists article for three paper-making artists who’ve mastered the art.
LINKS to other paper making sites:
- simple, clear instructions on a kid’s site
- fun science gallery gives history and lots of information
- I found these instructions clear and easy to follow
- a grade school project using straw to make paper
- from a commercial paper company
- a good article from exploratorium
- for the more ambitious: using plant pulp to make paper
Please leave a comment if any of you experienced paper makers out there have something to add!
Jun
29
Working From Abundance
June 29, 2007 | 3 Comments
[-process, essay-]
by Nancy S.M. Waldman
As we create, we use up media, materials, tools, ideas, time, and our own creative energy. Working from abundance means having a well of resources—more than we need—to create what we want.
My son used this expression in a conversation about the new songs he had just recorded. I mentioned how much the phrase resonated with me and he said that he had heard it from a professor who used it in terms of writing. In both instances, they were talking about accumulating, creating, way more than is needed for a project and then winnowing it down later to a more refined level.
Not everyone creates this way. I have a friend who writes sparsely and then fleshes out the story after she has the skeleton of it constructed. I’m the opposite. I overwrite and then must be brutal with myself about taking out everything that isn’t necessary.
However, the crucial aspect of abundance isn’t the number of words we write or the collection of materials on our worktables or the amount of paint we have at our disposal. It’s not even about time.
Time is necessary and without it we can’t create. But, there are people with loads of time who don’t use it to record music, make art or write novels. So having the time will only work for us if we have an abundance of what will motivate us to work, to play, to innovate.
Working from abundance is more about a certain attitude. This attitude incorporates elements of openness, generosity, fearlessness, confidence. At times, whimsy and audacity. It involves letting go of negatives, so there can be no sparsity of spirit. It’s about not worrying that we will use up all our good ideas if we throw everything we’ve got at a project. It’s about having faith that creativity is a renewable and sustainable resource.
There’s also energy to consider. Creative energy doesn’t have to be about being upbeat and feeling energetic. Many depressed people, who didn’t have the energy to bathe, have created masterpieces. It’s about using what we have to put into the process of creating.
While it’s true there are those instances when the more we create, the more energized we feel, it does have a limit. We have to always be aware of when we begin to feel like a worn-out battery. At that point, the idea is to get away from what is depleting us and re-charge ourselves. Working from an abundance of creative spirit will always result in a more effective creation.
And perhaps, that’s all we need to remember about abundance. If we can accumulate a deep pool of the attitude of abundance, then we will have what we need to create what we want.
Words of Art
Write Words
"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."
- Ernest Hemingway
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the PCQ flickr group
Nancy’s Images
