Last weekend I spent Saturday morning learning how to make Amate paper. The fiber used in this work is a kozo from Thailand. I am also going to work with a kozo from Japan in a couple of weeks.
The long process starts with soaking the bark in water over night, boiling the bark and then simmering the bark for 8 hours or so. Once this all takes place the paper is ready to be made. From a pound of kozo I ended up with all sorts of different sizes of papers to test print. I experimented with thicknesses and textures and seeing what type of results I would get. The paper is beautiful and in the next couple of weeks, I will post my in process prints. KathyAnne Art members can see the whole pictorial from start to finish and pics of each step, on Art in Common. Join KathyAnne Art with this link.
This is a piece that is already dry.
Printed after coating with inkAID
Another print. These 2 prints are from a larger piece of the grand canyon. They will be layered into something I am working on.
Incredibly gorgeous, Kathyanne! That last piece, especially: the texture of the edges is so appropriate for the photo you printed.
ReplyDeleteIt does require some commitment to go through the process you described, however!
Thanks, Carol, you are right, it is a commitment to make the paper. For me it was an adventure, as I found my way through the steps of taking the kozo from bark to paper.
ReplyDeleteThe end result, to have a surface so rich and so beautiful, is a wonderful way to be inspired to this process. There is a piece of kozo paper 16" x 33" sitting on my printer right now. The time consuming part for me is finding the right mix of image and paper, hope to have that soon!! It's been days with Photoshop, but last night I think I had a breakthrough:)