Pod Making

Last month, I got a call asking if I could make something out of paper suitable for a gallery show. I needed to commit right then and it had to be ready in about 10 days.

I said, "ahhhhh........ OK"

So I started doing some experimentation. A few of the first ideas were not terribly successful. But they were the spring board to my final project.
One of the paper vessels that I made had been made with some coloured fine scrap booking paper. I decided to try my hand at dyeing some paper and somewhere along the way the fact that I had my leaf screen from my leaf pillow project popped into my head.
So I screened a few different types of paper and then dyed them, cut the leaves out and began to play.

I needed a form on which to put my leaves and thought that a balloon would work quite well.
It worked well enough that I started to print and dye my papers. Four sheets in all which I had to cut into smaller sizes to be more manageable. They started out larger than a sheet of Bristol board and ended up being larger than 11 x 17.
The paper was first printed and then I mixed up my dyes and started painting.
First a yellow, then a yellow green
and finally a green. I know my hand looks rather like the undead, but that is the very snug latex glove that I am wearing.
Here is one of the final pieces of paper
and here is the lot of them drying. Thankfully the drying only took a few hours and I was able to start on the cutting and cutting and cutting
The final "Pod" took about a week to make including drying time. There were many many layers of paper and paste and drying was difficult.
But it has given me an idea about something else to do with paper. Maybe next year.

Edit: Please click on the pod picture to make it larger, the colours are much richer and more accurate.