Over the past several months I have learned or revisited several art techniques in various online workshops or classes. I’ve chosen my classes based solely on the idea that I was curious and I thought I’d enjoy learning about the subject. I love doing this, even when I don’t want to keep on with what I learned. I just like trying out new things.
As time has gone on, I’ve accumulated some materials and gotten some ideas. I’ve combined a couple of them to make a finished project, which I will show you in a series of posts.
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First of all, I learned to make paste papers from Lorrie Grainger Abdo at the Kalamazoo Books Arts Center.
(Here is the post I wrote on this workshop, with a thorough discussion of how to make paste papers).
I’ve got loads of papers I have made with technique and I love doing it, and the results are eye-popping, I think.
Secondly, I took a workshop on zine-making at the National Gallery of Art (here is the post) with artist Sarah Matthews, in which we made a tiny zine from one sheet of folded paper, incorporating handwriting.
Here, I am showing you a selection of painted paste papers with asemic handwriting in India ink superimposed over the colors. They are all about 9″ x 12″ or so.
What did I do with these papers? Well, for one thing, I used the scan of one of them as part of the cover design for my latest poetry book:
But I did use the actual papers in a project. More later…
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
I think you will never run out of ideas for using those papers. I think they would make lovely gift wrap, for instance.
Yes. The place where I learned this technique is a book arts center and they use them for all kinds of things for books, including end papers and covers. It would be very easy to make gift wrap with this method – it lends itself really well to large scale overage, really quickly.
I am in awe of not only your makings, but also of your explorations of different methods. Your asemic writing pieces are striking and the cover for your poetry book astounding. Looking forward to the next episode.
Thank you. I like everything to have a use, at some point, and those papers were so fantastic, but I was at a loss what to do (sort of like having great fabric and not quite sure where it would be best used, but your fingers are itching to do so…). I enjoy combining techniques and kind of layering the experiences on to each other, not just making the materials but then using them.
Those papers are amazing! You continue to amaze me with the scope of your artistic ability, I continue to be in awe 🙂
(PS – I am back from Ireland now and your surprise will be come in the mail someday – ha!)
Thank you on all counts!