Contemporary Craft Workshops

 To start my journey, I started with a couple paper-making workshops at Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh. The first workshop was on April 13th and it was all about the basics; we learned the Holland beater, what molds and deckles were, basic sheet making, and things of that nature. The best part of this workshop was that we each assembled a mold and kept it for our future endeavors in paper-making. 

The second workshop focused on color and textures. We dabbled a little in embossing with different textures on black sheets of paper and really got our hands dirty with different pigments. This was particularly useful to me because I had purchased many different pigments and a retention agent to experiment on my own with but this way, I was able to see the instructor do it before I did. 

The third workshop I attended was based on collage; this is where we were able to really be creative and experiment on our own. We worked with the paper pulp and any other materials we wanted to, I had things like pressed flowers, random pieces of wallpaper, magazine and book cuttings, it was really just a lovely time. One attendee had brought in wool and incorporated that into her collage pieces; it was really interesting to be able to see what the others came up with and where their mind was at during these workshops. 

The last workshop I attended was the one I was most excited about, PLANT PAPER!!! Our instructor had brought in a couple different plants for us to beat in the Holland beater and experiment with - what she had provided was already ready for the beater and did not need to be cooked (like I had to do in my endeavors) but  it was still a great learning experience before I went off on my own. 

These workshops were amazing and I could not have been more happy to attend them, they were so intimate being that there were only four students and such a breath of fresh air during Covid. 

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