On Saturday, Feb. 24, students in my “Exotic Fibers for Hand Papermaking” workshop learned to make handmade paper using 8 different plant fibers: kozo (Paper mulberry tree bark from Japan), lotka (Daphne bush bark from Nepal), abaca (a banana relative fiber from the Philippines), blue jean (cotton pulp from old recycled blue jeans), cedar (bark from cedar trees on the Oregon coast), eucalyptus (bark from local eucalyptus trees), Sitka spruce (bark from Sitka spruce trees on the Oregon coast) and Sitka sedge and beach grass (leaves from grass and wetlands plants along the Oregon coast). Students in the class were very creative and experimented with many different fibers and techniques. They learned to form sheets using the Japanese method with formation aid and multiple dips into the vats. Here are some photos of the workshop taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen (https://alltentimphotos2.wordpress.com)
Here are also some photos taken by one of the workshops participants, Tina Hittenberger, showing the hand beating of eucalyptus bark fiber on my Craig’s list-purchased table and the Japanese papermaking sugeta ( bamboo screen and wooden frame) that I got in Mino City, Japan, when I was an artist in residence at the Mino Paper Art Village Project in 1999-2000. Tina also took some photos of the handmade paper artworks hanging to dry at the studio on Saturday.
I will be offering other hand papermaking workshops during the summer at my Santa Rosa studio, the Studio Santa Rosa, 3740 Finley Ave., Santa Rosa, CA. Keep watching this Blog for announcements about future papermaking workshops, or contact me by email at info@janeingramallen.com