Hello and thanks for reading my first update in a staggering 6 months! Much has happened to my portfolio since I last updated here and today I join you with PULP PAINTING and LINOLEUM BLOCK printing!!
Yes, as fate would have it last semester I enrolled in a course called "paper & print" where we made nearly 100% of all of the paper we printed on. This update features the 2nd project in a semester of three, combining the process of pulp painting and linoleum.
Papermaking is an art of its own. If I were writing blogs at the time I would have made sure to make an entry just to explain it in itself, but here is a quick overview -
Paper is made of processed fibers that have been beaten into "pulp." Yes, as the expression goes "Beat you into a pulp", it is in reference to reducing plant material (or otherwise) into a simple fibrous form. Once the material has been reduced to pulp it is ready to be made into sheets! The technical process of making paper is much aided by actually seeing it done will help you understand all the better! Please check out this informative "How it's made" episode featuring handmade paper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbofx_YYaq0&playnext=1&list=PL0CCC1607CFD58360
So, getting into this two part process I first carved my linoleum block. Lino Cut is a form of relief printing (where the raised areas print) and it is a reductive process (which means the lines you cut "away" create negative space.) The size of this print is 16x20" and the theme we were given was "Visual Writing." As a play on the word "pulp" I made something inspired by "pulp" magazines of the early 20th century. I also thought of Roy Lichtenstein's conversational snippets in his work. When making this block I intended for the black and white image to stand alone as a solid piece of work, only to be enhanced by the colored PULP.
The image was also inspired by my brother, Andrew, whose co-workers actually said this to him. I got a good kick out of it when he put it up as his facebook status a number of months ago, and it stuck with me and eventually inspired a piece of work, and for that, I thank him.
If you watched the video above you might understand this next part where the PULP PAINTING comes in... Basically, the linoleum block had custom-made paper to be printed on. The sheets themselves are a mix of cotton and hemp fibers and once they were freshly made, they were pressed to 1000 PSI (pounds per square inch) to get some of the water out of the wet fibers.
Before you can begin painting with pulp, you must first make a stencil out of mylar (clear plastic) based on a proof (a test print) of your image. The mylar stencil will then be laid over the freshly pulled and damp carrier sheet and you can then move in with the colored pulp! The stencil is necessary to help control where you want your pulp to go (or the shield it from where you do not want it to go.) You have to be very exact when you make your stencil(s) based on the working proof!!
The pulp painting process is not unlike many water-based media we have all come to be familiar with. When you add lots of water the pulp becomes diluted and washier. You must also use two chemicals known as Methylcellulose (in other words, a pH neutral glue) and Formation Aid (another pulp additive) to get the pulp to behave like paint. If there is one thing I want you to walk away with having read this blog entry is that the colors on this image are NOT ink and are NOT paint, but paper itself embedded into the sheet, which is unlike anything else in my portfolio ever. It's pretty special and something I want to do more of!
Thanks for reading...!
