Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Life of a Sheet of Paste Painted Paper

A good deal of my time lately has been painting sheets of 18" x 24" sheets of paper using the paste painting techniques that I love so. 

The fall weather here in Michigan has been glorious (instead of the usual cold, rainy days that we frequently get in late October) so I can work in the garage, not freeze, and then clean up with the hose and not freeze.  I do believe, however, that those days are behind me and I will soon be stuck in the basement using the table under the stairs and the stained utility tub that is next to the sump pump.  Not the most inspiring environment.


Here's a sampling of the 50+ sheets that were painted.


Trim edges.  Cut down to 5" x 8 1/2" inches.  Fold.  Count out envelopes.  Package up with raffia.  Label and price each package.  Doesn't seem like too much until you try to do 50 sheets, then it's a back breaker.  I think I'm going to look into having a printer do the cutting.  Each package of 8 cards is $12.  Now that you know what love and effort goes into each little package, it's quite a bargain, don't you think?  :)



Here are some of the trimmed off bits.  I used to throw most of these away.  The stuff in our recycling bin was the prettiest in the neighborhood!  It just about killed me to throw all these away.   But I could only make so many bookmarks and the piles of scraps continued to grow into a mountain!  Then, I started working with paper mosaics and the rest (as they say) "is history". 

 
Here are some paper mosaic composite sheets made with the scraps from the larger paste painted sheets.  Almost every little piece of the large sheet is used, each and every time. 





With the holiday season just around the corner, these will probably be made into picture or mirror frames.

Lorrie


7 comments:

Vicki Holdwick said...

Lorrie,

This paper is fantastic. And I really love the mosaics.

xoxo

Rita A. said...

Yes, they do look well worth the $12.00. I love the papers and how ou found a way to use the trimiings. The mosaics are wonderful.I especially love the one with the heart just off center.

Kathy L said...

Lorrie

What kind of paper do you use for your process. And did you evr think of selling entire sheets of your paper,or half sheets in a bundle? As a thnk you gift for the purchase (because lets face it, mostly artists would buy the sheets) you could throw in a handful of scraps :)

Joanne Huffman said...

Your packs are beautiful and well worth $12. Your mosaics are always incredibly stunning.

last minute lynn said...

beautiful and yes $12 is a bargain considering all the work!

WW said...

I love making paste paper, unfortunately, don't do it that often. Your pieces are so bright and vivid.

Lorrie Grainger Abdo said...

Nice to hear from all of you. Kathy, I use tagboard from Molly Hawkins. I tried once to sell half sheets and they didn't go over big so I crossed it off the list of things to take to sales; however, it may be worth trying again.

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