Mandy Brannan

PAPER [PYPR]

Monday, April 26, 2010

Donington on Bain ......lastly


Freshly cut nettle tops, leaves and stems.
After cooking - yes this sludge will make paper.....

Nice density
The final type - far right (20% nettles 80% abaca)
Should work well with the etching print process - especially if internally sized.

Donington on Bain ...... more

Next pulp was made from dried grasses ....... not sure of the name but will up-date when known.
Just the grass fibres - results - very fibrussyyy - not usable for printing..
Added abaca and the resulting papers still have rough surface texture but dried well...
Re blended mix of abaca and grass - results - nice - print friendly .... but not a lot of rattle....


Donington on Bain cont.....

Firstly we made pulp from fresh daffodil leaves.
Results - rather interesting - almost skin like texture, very difficult to dry flat - possibilities for drying over an armature maybe?
Beaten abaca was added to the daffs to make flat sheets... The resulting paper had a subtle iridescent sheen - nice ... dried well ...nice rattle ...

Trip to Donington on Bain, Louth, Lincolnshire




Spent 3 days with Christine Harrison (paper historian) teaching her to make paper with garden plants.
- lots of paper made - lots of discussions pertaining to handmade papers -


'Mould & Deckle'

Interesting outcome - creation of a new guild/group for Britain based papermakers and paper historians





Trip to Lincolnshire......


OMG - Daffodils every where - seems that this is an amazing year for the daffs.......
and every where I am - DAFFODILS...........

On the train to Lincoln - daffodils......

Monday, April 12, 2010


daffodils - abaca - pigmented gampi

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Spring - more yellows - the daffodil effect!

Then, of course, started to play.

It's Spring - Daffodils!



Finished my teaching course and thought it was time to take some time to make.....
Had some daffodils left from Easter and added the flowers to manila hemp - (abaca).
I tried different blends and I was really pleased with the buttery cream results.
I was sure that the flowers would loose their yellow colour when I cooked them - but surprisingly no.....
The paper has a good compactness and a nice rattle sound. If I make the sheets thick enough the resulting paper should be strong enough to be used with my etching plates for printing, if spray soaked.
I'll try adding some recycled graph paper in the next batch. Always need a bit of grid stuff in my work!
The outer/flimsy/translucent/part of the flower added an interesting element -
next time I will prepare these separately from the petals.


Friday, April 2, 2010

Teaching at Central St Martin's.... workshop


Helen brought threads, PVA elements and knitted pieces which she
embedded into the abaca and recycled fibres.



Central St Martin's ......

sometimes we just liked to watch - how the pigments and fibres swirl and play in the water

over beaten - over pigmented - kozo

Easter yellow pigmented kozo

Central St Martin's continued......

Sarah made herself a mould and deckle




Sarah
- graphite powder - cement - red pigment -

Quite an unusual mixture of inclusions and challenging to use!!!!
The results were interesting and certainly gave Sarah ideas for further work .....

"Ideas for future projects involving producing paper to make books or screenprint with- with a central concept of theme running through it.
For example using concrete paper to produce an artist book related to architectural aspects."