Making paper string

You cut thin paper into narrow strips in a zig-zag, and roll the strips between your fingers. I'm using pages from an old copy of the British National Formulary, which in nearly 1000 pages provides up-to-date guidance on prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines. The book is only a few centimetres thick, and the paper is lightweight yet opaque, along the lines of bible paper.

Various kinds of paper can be used to make paper string - these are made of newspaper -

Update 6 March: using a lightweight spindle makes the spinning go faster -

Kwang Young Chun's wrapped accumulations

They are presented framed, like paintings - but a more accurate description is paper sculptures. The irregular shapes (foam blocks) are wrapped in Korean mulberry paper, tied with paper string. Some works on show at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Cork Street, were small - you could just about tuck them under your arm, had you been allowed - but most were large -

and the wrapped parcels were set in various configurations and colourways. These are details -

The New York Times said: "Chun’s preference for using natural dyes and handmade mulberry paper was born from childhood memories of his uncle’s pharmacy, where small medicinal herb parcels that were similarly wrapped with paper and hung in tight clusters from the ceiling in order to protect them from insects. ... [he said in interview] "When I started the Aggregation in late 1980, I wanted to express and take forward the spirit of Korean traditions using mulberry paper, which used to be indigenous to every Korean household ... Then in 2004, my work started to look more like lunar landscapes and dry desert as I wanted to express my anger and criticism toward modern society and how it is destroying environment.""

Outside, the one in the window takes its context - reflection of the building across the street - to make an inadvertent "criticism toward modern society" -

His website is chunkwangyoung.com

Painting course at Camden Arts Centre

Five weeks of Thursday afternoons, following on from a course last term. Looking back, what did I learn.... Mainly, to enjoy the painting process more, and to be freer with the materials, eg add collage.

Week 1, using gesso and washes -

Attractive drips (dilute acrylic on a canvas board)

... but wet on wet disperses so quickly!

 Adding collage elements - I'd brought some origami tissue paper and some travel lines, and pasted them onto my wash-and-blobs -

 ... using paint as glue. This is the paste paper, can't remember if I kept it or made myself throw it away immediately -

 Week 2 - viewing the Sadie Benning exhibition - the more I thought about it, the more intriguing it became -

then back to the studio to continue with our personal projects.

Week 3 - the life model. First we did two continuous-line drawings; for me the challenge was to assess the proportions and mentally mark out the paper (in the absence of any physical clues!), then keep to that. As you work down the page (if you decide to start at the top) there's less and less room left for legs and maybe none at all for feet...

She was wearing bright colours and our second task was to use coloured paper -

I really enjoyed the finger painting, even though the result is rather dominated by the flooring -

Week 4, back to our projects...  Personal project 1 - the panel - adding more collage elements (cut from an old magazine), glued down with paint, which I hoped would make interesting ridges around the edge of the shape -

 and some string -

 Ouch, hurts the eye doesn't it!

Out comes the white paint, and the end of the paintbrush is used to scrape through it -

 Slightly different treatment on the other side - and the tissue paper colour bleeds through the paint -

 Unifying the two halves -

Some final touches, including several more layers over that bleedin' tissue paper -

Project 2 - the envelopes - working towards a submission for A Letter in Mind fundraiser. My piece last year consisted of travel-lines spread over 6 envelopes that were done in one journey on the Victoria Line - the work of an hour - this was so simple but took a lot of agonised rejection of complicated stuff beforehand. This year, more agonised making and still no simple idea... The theme this year is "A Way with Colour".
Some I prepared earlier -

 And what happened when they got near gesso and/or white paint -

 A bit more paint ...

 Another idea (it didn't happen, but I'm enjoying the colours and shapes as redefined by the accidental shapes) -

 Quite a lot going on -

These little bits are from the paint chart made for a book fair in November 2015 - they were so pretty I couldn't bear to throw them out -

 Some envelopes, with some travel lines - and Matthew's crow -

 Another crazy collage idea -

 cut from an old magazine; the layers of colour on the pages are rather good -

Bringing it all together in the final moments of the class, for viewing-

chaos

order

 Matthew did demos -

Oil pastel + solvent = oil painting

Finger painting for adults (wear gloves)

 ...and had inspirational images available each week -

Chantal Joffre and Matisse, for the session with model

Bringing it all together - 

Must say I don't have a "favourite" among the items done in the course - the fingerpainting (top right) was fun and so was the collage (top left), and the collage on panel got overlayered many times. I have some red ric-rac and might glue that on over the red paint; possibly the ric-rac was in the back of my mind throughout ... there came a point, after the paint had gone on, that I started thinking of it as "the ric-rac piece".

In the collage, the green paper that I'd picked for background had that corner cut out so I decided it was a window, and some of the other shapes hide joins in that paper. Some fill the space, in the sense of connecting the figure and the window - but I didn't want it to feel cluttered. 

While cutting and pasting, I felt I was responding to what was happening, rather than trying to get a likeness of the model. Perhaps the change of activity (picking up and putting down the scissors, the glue) gave just that break that allowed for "seeing" the work at each stage, rather than working blindly on a preconceived idea. Perhaps when the painter picks up a different brush and loads it with a different colour, there's that "seeing" moment before the brush adds the colour, that chance to respond differently.

After the collage, we put on gloves and moved on to fingerpainting the model - that was very liberating! Again there's a lot of space around the model on my paper, and I think it might benefit from cropping. (Lesson: think about size and placement, next time....)

We also did line drawings, or rather we did those first in that session with the model. Quite quick exercises. One continuous line each, a change of pose in between. It was only when it was finished that I realised how wrong the proportions are - the continuous line keeps you intent on the drawing rather than the looking and adjustment that conventionally happens. With the continuous line you have to "make the drawing" rather than "get it right". 

Sculpture week 8

The 5-minute talk was on Nancy Spero (1926-2009), who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, then lived in Paris till returning t0 the US in 1950. Her work, on paper and in installations, is largely about war and the abuse of power, and she's a pioneer of feminist art. The work incorporates Greek and Egyptian motifsas well as lingerie advertisements. Some is ephemeral - paintings on walls that then get painted over. "it's are because I say so", she said. Some of the works shown were Black and the Red 2003 - a Jacquard tapestry
and Maypole / Take No Prisoners - the heads are just cardboard with drawings on - a lesson in presenting 2D knowledge in a 3D context.While finding these images I spotted Cri du Coeur 2005 -The sculpture room shelves needed clearing of our work, so I set to with files on the hardened clay on my carved piece. Lots of dust - work outdoors and wear a mask -The rough "inside"
and a smoother "outside" - (not sure where "in between" is here)
My starting point "sketch" - what that form evolved from, once I got beyond 2D -
This "B" is modelling clay painted with pva to keep it from crumbling - later I'll paint it with acrylic and we'll use it as a doorstop - it's about 8" long. The other piece is twice that size and four times as heavy - it'll be fired and then glazed.

My "outdoor project" is coming together at last - here are the ingredients, sticks and paper. The primed sticks have been painted with silver enamel, which hardly shows - just a bit of gleam. The handmade paper needs dipping in wax.
Some samples of ladders - crocheted and with rungs of dictionary pages, then dipped in wax. Just as I was fiddling with the wax pot, the fire alarm went off - because the wax pot being used on the floor below had overheated. (Somewhere in the dusty strata of the treasure trove known as my workroom - though recently it has become more of a storeroom than a place for creative work - are the cut pages saved from the altered book project ... )
Simple seems to be best - this one is just doubled string, knotted, with the rungs inserted into the knots -
Just need to make some more paper and wax it; join the sticks at the base with other, short sticks; staple paper to the sticks; make, wax, attach ladders; find stones to weight it down - and hope for the best - nearly done!