Where does inspiration come from?

As I remake and update my 3 editions of 'Pressed' I am pondering....
* shall I make a 4th edition?
* what shall I write about?
* what will be the overall theme?

Sometimes I amaze myself when inspiration hits me.....recently I spent a week with my daughter, over from America, visiting many, many gallery shows around London hoping to find something to inspire me.
I always seem to find ideas from non papermaking/book arts shows. This time it's different again but still connected to my daughters' visit....

A week with my creative daughter always covers a plethora of discussions of visual subjects. At one point she mentioned a music video by the group Ok-Go.

and then now, a week later .....while pondering the thoughts above....I watched a few more of their videos.

I realized - 'yes' - I remember the video where they used walking gym machines.

Then I watched this one....

                                          

My OMG moment....' Colour' that's it......I am known for my pigmentation and colourific papers....

 Pressed will be about Handmade Paper - Colours

Festival of Stuff UCL

Festival of Stuff

Institute of Making

UCL

Back for the 3rd time.....love this place - lovely staff and great workshop facility.

Again - both workshops filled up in seconds! and a great 

bunch of students.

Crammed a 5 hour workshop into just 2 hours.......organized chaos - but it worked!!! again....phew

https://www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/events/detail/festival-of-stuff-afternoon-papermaking-masterclass1

I had a great time at Barnard and Westford during the London Craft week. I made all the invitations using a fusion of all my different techniques of Japanese style of paper making. The design was influenced by Kyoto hydrangeas and lichen that was growing on the temple walls. The colour - racing green, was LCW's 2019 colour......https://www.barnardandwestwood.com/

Kyoto hydrangeas and lichen.

London Craft Week

Well this is going to be a busy month....

I have just sent over this image of my papers and a Japanese Su and Keta... for their marketing dept and it will be up on the London Craft Week website soon!!

Now I have to start making the invites for my collaboration with

https://www.barnardandwestwood.com/

I am quite chuffed to be invited to be part of this year's collaboration by the folks at 

London Craft Week. 

For several years I have been an advisor and in 2017 I taught a workshop at UCL's Institute of Making for the event.... Click on the link below to see the photos taken at the workshop

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97323620@N03/sets/72157680278117573?fbclid=IwAR1V8uKFIAvnbCEJ6VzzLOXKQP08jY0HAKEuL1eBTGLkNwf-SJP1tUN1MvY

Documenting collections

I am documenting as I catagorize and organise all my papers.

Daffodil 

As I look through them I realise that I have sold so many because they have departed from my collection! That's ok because I know they were brought for good reasons (to frame or use creatively).

Bouganvillea

I spoke to ladies at the Leeds Book Fair last week-end who brought the papers 'just because' they wanted them. That's really lovely!

To see the rest of the images go to this link.......

https://www.facebook.com/Mandy-Brannan-Papermaker-Book-Artist-1395680530737103/                                                     

Rose

Wallpaper Magazine Article

So excited because I was invited to have my papers in the March edition of 

Wallpaper Magazine.

The papers had been seen in my Instagram #mjbooks!!!! and I was contacted be a past colleague who works for them

They are papers made by embedding thistledown in papers made with gampi and abaca fibres!!

More updates for 2019...

The workshops at the 

https://www.essexprintstudio.co.uk/home/workshops-classes/ 

will be on the the 17th and 24th March (Sundays)

One will be the 'Fusion' workshop - this is an experimental class covering both Japanese and Western styles of hand papermaking.

The other will be the 'Botanicals' workshop - papermaking with plants and flowers.

Both classes will lead into a further workshop (date to be announced) that will look at using the handmade papers for bookmaking.
Date has been arranged......14th April

London Craft Week

My other announcement is that, again, I will be part of the London Craft Week!

This time I am so excited to be at 

https://www.barnardandwestwood.com/