Art in a Blender! RES

The art room at RES is big on saving materials and recycling what we can't save. Sometimes the pile of construction paper clippings gets big, really big.  And being at heart more of a tosser than a hoarder, it's exciting to give it all new purpose and clear some space in my cabinets.

And so, third graders are working on making paper here at RES!

Unmolding the paper from the screens

 The process is pretty simple, really. You take scraps of paper, and put them in a blender with lots of water.  Scraps can be from other art projects or just all the junk mail you got today. You can add glitter, leaves, tea, spices, flowers, seeds, or fragrances to your homemade paper by throwing it in the blender with the paper scraps. Give it a whirl until it is somewhere between chunky and uniform, then pour the pulp into your paper deckle.

Freshly pressed!

By varying the scraps, blending time, and additions of glitter, RES students made an amazing and beautiful variety of textures and colors.

Almost dry

There are lots of things to do with handmade paper. These will be made into journal covers.

Here are few close-ups:

You can see the texture of the screen if you look carefully.

Just enough pulp to hold together all that glitter!

Two colors of pulp made in separate batches and pressed together.

Using pink, red, and white scraps mixed with glitter. Color mixing in a blender!