The participants in my Saturday Oct. 6 workshop “Papermaking for Printmakers” had a productive and creative day making handmade paper from a variety of plant fiber pulps. They learned Western and Asian/Japanese papermaking techniques for sheet forming, pressing, drying, watermarking, embossing, laminating and other special technique to create their own unique handmade paper suitable for priintmaking. It was a very congenial group because all of the participants in this workshop do letterpress printing together at the Sebastopol studio of North Bay Letterpress Arts https://www.northbayletterpressarts.org

During this workshop we made paper from the following pulps: Abaca, blue jean, eucalyptus and Sitka Spruce as well as some sedge, beach grass and paper mulberry. Here are some photos of the workshop. The photos are by Timothy S. Allen (allentimphotos2.wordpress.com)

I can’t wait to see what the printmakers will do with the sheets they made and how the finished prints will look.  I hope to post some photos of their prints on handmade paper soon on this Blog.  The next hand papermaking workshop at my Santa Rosa studio will be “Papermaking for Fiber Artists” on Saturday and Sunday, Nov.10 and 11.  This class is already full, but contact me at info@janeingramallen if you want to be put on the waiting list.

I am also teaching a special workshop “From Plants to Paper” at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, 900 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa, on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 20 and 21. We will make paper from local plants and go through the whole process from gathering plant materials to producing unique handmade papers from plants of the Laguna, such as dogbane, willow, sedge, cattail, bullrush and others we will discover there. We will also see what papermaking we can do with some invasive plants found in the Laguna.  Places are still available in this workshop, and to register go to this link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-plants-to-paper-papermaking-with-laguna-plants-tickets-49579227805