August 1, 2009

I attended John and Linda Babcock’s “Paper Making with Natural Fiber” at the Sierra Azul Nursery and Garden.  It was sponsored by the Pajaro Valley Art Council of Watsonville.

John demonstrated paper-making with fibers from the Bearded Iris and the Western Rush.  Both plants commonly found around our neighborhood.

John mentioned that he wasn’t using the pulp of the  Cordyline Palm Lily because he didn’t have time to prepare it.  So he just had the iris and rush pulp.

90% of a paper maker’s job is preparing the pulp.  In this case, I am beating iris fibers with a rubber mallet to break the fibers up to make pulp.  The more you beat the fiber, the stronger the paper ends up and the thinner you can make the sheet.  For the iris pulp, I didn’t beat it a lot so the paper sheet was hard to handle without tearing but it had a really cool heavy straw-like texture with uneven thickness.

John and Linda have a way of using a bamboo sushi mat, some mosquito netting and pine wood frame for shaping and pulling the pulp out of the water.  At first it was hard because it was a new technique but it ended up being easier.

I used a blender to make the rush pulp.  So it was finer and easier to make thinner.  It was also stronger and didn’t tear when I made it.  I liked the rush pulp more than the iris pulp because of its dark green color.  It had the aroma of cut grass and silk cocoons.  I didn’t like the smell too much.

John had to give me a little help…thanks!

After we got home, we tried ironing the paper sheets to make them flatter.  It worked.  So we will iron from now on (unless we really don’t want to make it flat).

Follow Up Ideas:

• I can look around the neighborhood for the iris and the rush (my dad and I need to ask the owners if we can have the fibers they don’t want anymore).  We found a good source – the Yerba Buena Nursery.  We can grow the plants in our patio and harvest the fiber when they get big enough!
• I can make the pulp the same way as John and Linda did it.
• I can try couching the same as John and Linda, using a sushi mat, mosquito netting and frame (my dad and I would  have to make the frame) or I can couch it the same as I’ve always done
• I can try scenting the paper by adding aromatic oils in the pulp.
• The rest can be the same as the Babcocks’ did.
• Maybe I can take John and Linda’s Weekend Paper Making Workshop in November… I’ll have to talk to dad about it.  We found out later…this workshop is actually not set-up for kids, so dad might go instead.

Resources:

Iris and rush plants:

http://www.yerbabuenanursery.com/index.php

Formation aid:

Magnolia Editions of Oakland

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Other Fun Things

I also had fun trying some sculpture…