Sketchbook Sunday: Papermaking Workshop II

This weekend I returned to Historic Rittenhouse Town for more papermaking workshops with artist and educator Cozy Bendesky. (Last month I took papermaking with seeds, leaves, and flower pedals) Saturday was papermaking with plants, and today was open vats papermaking, which is basically open studio. Over the weekend I made 63 sheets of paper out of cotton, thistle, cattails, day lilies, and recycled bluejeans. This includes 20 sheets to use in an upcoming print exchange, some paper for my daughters, and the 6 sheets pictured here that I'm going to print on as soon as I figure out what to print. 

In addition to having great fun, this is building up to something. Just wait 'til the spring of 2018. 

Sketchbook Sunday: Papermaking Workshop

As regular readers already know, I don't always post about work in my sketchbook on Sketchbook Sunday. For instance, I have posted about a sequencing workshop and drawing on ceramics before. The idea of these Sundays was to get me to keep my hand moving and work through new impressions and ideas I have about what I see. Even though this is papermaking, it still serves the purpose of Sketchbook Sundays because I'm exploring familiar materials in ways I haven't before.

This is the first time I have ever made paper. I took a workshop on making paper with seeds, leaves, and flower pedals at Historic Rittenhouse Town with artist and educator Cozy Bendesky. It was a nice, small group (4 students) and Cozy was a well-prepared, friendly, and knowledgeable instructor.

I made 18 sheets of paper this morning, but here is a sampling from today's workshop that well represents the collection of materials we were working with. The vats started out with abaca cotton pulp, to which we added our various garden sundries.