Lesson 5

Making Paper Pulp

Step 1 – Soak the paper

Making Paper Pulp - Step 1 - Soaking the paper

• Gather up paper from your recycle bin if you want (if you want your paper pulp to be white, then use printer paper)
• Tear it into small pieces – about 1” or less  ( or put it through your shredder)
• Soak for 24 hours ( at least) in hot water to start

Step 2 – Blend the soaked paper

Making Paper Pulp – Step 2 – Blending the Paper

• If possible, blend the soaked paper until fibers have broken down (it can be done by hand but it a lot of time)

Step 3 – Strain the blended paper

Making Paper Pulp – Step 3 – Straining the Paper

• Strain the resulting mush, through a cloth, into another bowl.  Twist the cloth to squeeze out as much water as you can.  (Throw the water away outside if possible – it will probably have fine paper particles in it, and you don’t want them in your drain if you can help it)
• Put the resulting fiber mass into the original bowl (now clean) and break into small pea sized pieces.  This can be stored in an airtight bag or container until class time.

Step 4 – Adding glue

Making Paper Pulp – Step 4 – Adding glue

• The final step in making your paper pulp mixture is to add white glue or paste to the pea sized pieces of paper fiber that you have created from the above steps.
• You are going to use the glue to reconstitute them into a fibrous mash or pulp and that is what we will use to make the vessel
• Pour the glue on to the raw paper pulp pieces and begin kneading the paper with your fist.  Disposable gloves are useful for this part of the process since the glue is quite sticky.  Continue kneading until you have a fairly smooth, consistent, dough-like mass.  Add glue as necessary.
• You should not be able to feel or see individual pieces of paper.
•  Continue kneading until all the pulp stays together in a ball and feels smooth.

 

Preparing Your Mold

• Wrap your mold (plastic bowl) in plastic wrap and secure with masking tape on the inside of the bowl.

 

Applying Paper Pulp

Making a Paper Pulp Vessel

• You can flatten larger pieces of pulp in your palm and lay/press them on the mold with your thumbs
• You can break off pieces of pulp and press them on the mold with your fingers or thumbs
• Try to keep the application depth regular to aid in the drying process
• You can lightly dampen your fingers and pat over the applied pulp to smooth out the applied pieces of pulp
• You can use a piece of damp cloth to pat the surface of the pulp to smooth out the texture of the pulp after you have applied it
• If you plan on having holed for stitching or design work, you need to create them while the pulp is still wet. 
• You can create stitching holes using an awl working from the outside of the mold.  Once the vessel is released it is then easy to finish the hole while the interior of the vessel is still damp.

 

Drying Time

Paper pulp takes time to dry.  Wait at least 24 hours before trying to release the vessel from the mold.  Once released the vessel will need at least 48 hours to dry thoroughly.  Keep turning the vessel to make sure that all surfaces are exposed to the air.  The thicker the layer of pulp, the longer the vessel will require to dry.

 

Adding Colour

Colour can be added to the glue.  Acrylic paint or dye can be added to the glue and mixed into the pulp at that stage. The colour would then be throughout the entire vessel.

The vessel can be painted once dry with acrylic paint if desired.

 

Extra –Paper Pulp Dipping

Lesson 4

Adding Stitch to Paper Clay Vessels

Unlike with the paper mache vessels, with paper clay, you need to have pre-planned for stitching on your vessel.  You can make holes after the fact but it isn’t easy and you definitely run the risk of damaging your vessel – a fine drill bit will work but you don’t want to do it too close to the edge of your vessel or too close to other holes.  It can take out more clay than you anticipate on the other side as the drill bit exits so making the holes while the clay is wet or damp is the best solution.

Piercing holes for a border edging

The edge of your vessel remains a delicate area, so you will need to manage it with care.  As the clay dries, it can crack.  You want your clay to be a uniform thickness if at all possible.  The edge can be the most delicate area when releasing your vessel from the mold.  When you are making your holes with your awl, make them at least a ¼” from the edge of the clay and ¼” to 1/3” apart.

Remember to pierce the holes from both sides of the vessel. If you paint your vessel or varnish it, you may need to use your awl again to make sure that the holes have not been clogged with paint or varnish.  Spin the awl, or use a drilling motion –DO NOT PUSH.

Stitching the Edging

Once all the edging holes are complete, it’s time to do a Blanket/buttonhole stitch around the edge.  I use the term Buttonhole and Blanket stitch interchangeably even though I believe there is a slight difference between the two.

All knots are on the inside and secured with full strength PVA, then the tails are trimmed.  I use crochet cotton #10, mainly because I then went on to crochet an edging into the buttonhole stitch.  Perle cotton, or embroidery floss would work as well if you were not planning to crochet.

One thing that you can do if you wish is crochet – that is completely optional.  For anyone interested, this is how I began to do the crochet work on my vessel edging.  I used the loops that I created with the buttonhole stitch as the foundation row for my crochet.  I held the tail of the crochet thread along the edge of the vessel and wove it in as I crocheted along the vessel edge so that there would not be any loose threads.  You can see all this in the accompanying videos below.

PBV Paper ClayVessels and Crochet part 1                how to begin

PBV Paper ClayVessels and Crochet part 2                continuing around the vessel

PBV Paper ClayVessels and Crochet part 3                skipping stitches, freeform crochet

PBV Paper ClayVessels and Crochet part 4                changing thread colour, finished vessel

 

I’ve included some How To Crochet videos if you want to brush up your skills.

Video – Beginner’s Single Crochet 6:19 is where the actual crochet stitching starts

Video – Beginner’s Double Crochet  1:43 is where the actual crochet stitching starts

If you didn’t wish to crochet, you could use the buttonhole stitches as link stitches to allow you to couch fibres to the edge of your vessel.  You could take decorative fibres that might be too thick to stitch through the paper clay and couch them to the vessel using the legs or loops of the buttonhole stitch as anchor places to attach the fibres.  Additional touches of PVA could also be used to secure the fibres if necessary.

PBV Adding Cord to Paper Clay Vessel

You could also choose to do a form of needle lace using the buttonhole stitch as an anchoring stitch for your work.   Another possibility is to do a type of string art stitching using the blanket stitch as the anchor stitch for the “string”.  See the video example below.

The decoration on the edge is up to you and your imagination.

PBV Alternate Stitching for Paper Clay Vessel

Additional Information for Working with Paper Clay

As I’ve continued to work with paper clay, I’ve learned a few more things:

I took Janis’ suggestion and got a silicon art mat for rolling out my paper clay.  It has made a difference.  I no longer have to tape down parchment paper which seems to defy masking tape and will crease and leave creases in my paper clay.  The art mat (not baking sheet)is smooth, large enough to roll a reasonable piece of clay, and easy to wipe down with water.  It rolls for storage (around my rolling pin) when not needed.

Since trying it, I have become really fond of the glass bowl as a mold. I am able to make regular shapes and irregular shapes depending upon whether I cut a circle to place inside the glass bowl or simply use an irregular piece of paper clay and fit and piece it as I want the vessel to appear.

Using a glass bowl, lightly dusting the inside with cornstarch and pressing my paper clay inside the bowl to form my vessel is working extremely well.  I can still use my awl to make holes from the inside to the outside – they will barely be pinpricks showing on the outside at first but that is not a problem.  Leave the vessel to dry for at least 24 hours (possibly more depending upon drying conditions).  When the inside appears whitish (somewhat dry and hard enough to keep its shape), lightly press down on the edge of one side of the vessel.  If the vessel begins to move within the glass bowl, you can gently continue pressing on the edge (as long as it does not deform) until the vessel slides up the side of the glass bowl and you can remove it.  At this point, you can widen the holes from both sides and turn the vessel over to dry on the other side.  If extra cornstarch remains on the back of the vessel, it can be gently brushed off with a soft brush.

Adding embellishments to paper clay vessels definitely seems to work best if you wait until the vessel has been released from the mold and is dry.  Now that I am creating more of my vessels by making them inside of my glass bowl, the outside of my vessel is the last part of the vessel to be released from the mold so it makes sense that I can’t add embellishments until I have released it.  Earlier though, I was making vessels on the outside of my plastic and silicone molds (and will continue to use those shapes).  I discovered that the flexing that happened during the release process created enough stress to cause embellishments to detach from the vessel (even if the precaution of adding glue had been used). 

When I waited until after removing the vessel from the mold and then added the embellishment – with a bit of glue – it adhered beautifully.  I did use a bit of “delicate” (purple) painter’s tape (from which I had removed a bit of the tackiness) to make sure it remained in close contact with the vessel during the drying process.  I didn’t want it to lift during shrinkage.  That was just on the ends because the pieces were long feathers, and I was leaving it overnight. I was able to remove the tape easily, with no damage to the embellishment or vessel.

I painted the vessel using copper acrylic paint and gave the feathers a watered down black acrylic wash so they would stand out.

 

I used a copper metallic perle thread and black crochet cotton for the stitching.  The larger spacing for the holes around the vessel meant that the spacing for the crochet was larger to start with than on other vessels.