Arnold Grummer's Design Team Blog

Making kirigami with handmade paper is easy and the results can be elegant or quirky depending on your choices. Whether you are using your handmade paper to make into kirigami or adding kirigami pieces into your handmade paper, the results are beautiful. "So what is kirigami?" you may ask. Kirigami is the combination of folding and cutting paper to make designs. Most of us have made paper snowflakes. That is a form of kirigami. First, you fold the paper and then you cut elements from the folds. Unfolding the piece reveals the pattern. There are two parts to this article: Part One - Making kirigami Part Two - Incorporating kirigami in your handmade paper. Materials: recycled materials to make paper Arnold Grummer's medium hand mold basin for water Couch sheets blender scissors with thin, sharp blades Video tutorials to watch: How to Make Paper: Surface Embedment How to Make Paper: Sheet Layering Instructions: Making Kirigami: Kirigami involv...

The blender came out again to work on some papermaking ideas.  After making a couple batches of paper pulp for more experimenting, I created two interesting "organic" sheets. The first was made by placing a number of  skeleton leaves  onto the  papermaking screen . This is layered on top of the  white support grid  that is sitting on a pan with a lip to catch the water from pressing.   After they were in position I took small clumps of the pulp and placed it over each of the leaves.    NOTE:  The weight of the pulp helps hold the leaves in place.   Continue to cover the entire leaf pattern with pulp, going beyond the edges of the pattern.  Place enough pulp to cover but not too thick.  Experiment with the thickness and placement of the pulp.  Place the mesh cover screen on top of the pulp and begin removing water with sponges.  Remove as much of the water as possible and flip the screen over, pressing a...