After my debacle with the mixer a few days ago I regrouped, put my brain in gear, and blended some of my pulp into a finer, more smooth paste. Currently working with banana fibre and cardstock I’m making the components of what will become a travel journal. This stage is creating a cast paper motif for the front cover.
I was inspired by my friend, Robert, and his work at Primrose Park last week. He made his own molds, which are fairly large, and formed some fantastic paper reliefs with them.
I’m not after anything that large or that dimensional, just something low-relief to complement the ‘earthy’ tones of my sheets of paper.
Over the years I’ve accumulated several sets of Cedar Canyon Rubbing Plates and decided to see if I could use them to cast paper. Made of tough, fairly rigid, plastic the pulp should dry and release quite easily.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t work although the imagery is quite complex and some areas are very fine, but as long as I can push the fibre into all the recesses well enough I should get a reasonable result.
I started by pressing small amounts of pulp into the mold and, once completed, I used a rolling-pin to flatten the back.
As the shapes slowly dried IÂ periodically pressed the pulp down into the molds, hoping to improve the final definition.
I laid them outside to finish drying in the warm shade (with a brick so they wouldn’t blow away) and was surprised how quickly the pulp formed into solid paper pieces and popped out of the rubbing plates. As they dried they shrunk slightly and came away from the plates, leaving them completely clean.
They’ve buckled a bit as they dried but, depending on how I’m going to use them, I reckon I can dampen the back of them and re-flatten them to lie nicely on backing sheets. Very pleased with this stage of the project.
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