Monday 6 April 2015

Paper Fabric Art Book


A lovely friend of my family came over recently to host a day making fabric paper; a technique where you bind sheets of paper, tissue paper and thin muslin together with thinned PVA to create a tough but soft material perfect for both sewing and drawing on. My finished piece turned into a house.


The best bit of this technique was being able to control the exact colour and composition of the finished material; I cut a small square out of a few layers of the paper as I stuck them down, to create a section that was thinner than the rest. I turned it into the window of my house (see above) because I loved how it let in more light and showed the painted outside.


The best part was creating the colourful front; by layering colours of tissue paper, little fragments of paper, and large washes of diluted paints and dyes, you can create a really beautiful finished piece. My favourite technique was sprinkling little pinches of powdered dye (brusho works well) onto the wet tissue paper, where it spread out in small starbursts of colour, which is how I got the blotched affect above.

Finally, I sewed the edges of the paper to make it a stronger bond. I was ready to turn it into something!


It was meant to be the cover for a book of photographs (which is why I had written "photo book" on the front cover) but it turned out to have shrunk a bit, and was therefore too small for the photos. Instead, I sketched a few ideas onto the back side, before deciding that the little clearer square was definitely supposed to be a window, even if I didn't know it at the time. So it became a house.


I had great fun playing with textures and shapes; I machine embroidered the outline for the door, and the cat flap within the door, before drawing over the outside with felt tip pen and biro. I used scraps of fabric for the stairs, table, bed, curtains and carpet, but the rest I either drew on in black Pitt marker or machine embroidered on.


I wrote the story of the house in all the spaces that I had left over. I can't read my handwriting much any more, but it says something about the cat on the bed and having high tea and cakes.

Even if you don't have the chance to make the fun paper fabric, why don't you try making a house or interactive picture from a small quilt or altered book?

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