Introduction
Designing involves a lot of materials, one being paper, and this project introduced us to it. Through the journey we discovered multiple aspects of different types of paper like their thickness, appearance, nature and how it builds their potential.
Manipulating paper
The first week was all about discovering paper techniques through creating textures of different papers. For Day 3, I experimented with sun board, and observed how it reacts to heat and used that to create a texture with curvy lines.
Step 1- Carve curvy lines in the sun board sheet. Keep the cutter at an angle of 160 degree to avoid cutting through the sheet.
Step 2- Hold the sheet above a candle flame while maintaining enough distance to avoid burning which can darken the edges.
Step 3- The heat makes the edges of the lines roll inwards. Rotate the paper over the flame to let all the edges roll.
We also took daily quizzes that surprised me with many amazing facts and got me curious about some. As I've observed that carbon paper is used to copy writings, it intrigued me what makes it capable of that. After some research I found that carbon paper is coated with ink or dyes on one side. The pressure of the pen on one surface allows the ink to transfer to another paper.
Safety Practices - Burning paper
Do not burn a large part of the paper at once as it can get hard to control the fire.
Start with burning small portions of the paper.
If the piece of paper is small, use tongs to hold it instead of your fingers.
Use a candle flame and keep it on a surface instead of holding it in your hands for better focus.
Least effective
For the textures we tried out many techniques. I struggled with pulping and my outcome didn't turn out good. The pulp was not very sticky and formed a lot of lumps which made it difficult to make a form out of the pulp.
Conclusion
Experimenting with different papers to make textures was a struggle especially when the properties of the paper doesn't support the desired outcome.
My muddiest point was creating the above texture. I had punched holes through a streamer and was using gateway paper like a thread. I had a long thin strip of gateway to pass through the holes, and as I pulled it through the holes, it tore many times reducing the length of the strip. It ended up taking a lot of time and effort.
Pulping for the final outcome of the project is the point I'm most confident of. After my first trial, I had asked a friend on how to make better pulp, and it helped me a lot. I followed his instructions and achieved a really sticky pulp. It took very less time and gave me better results.
Final outcome
Process poster
Learnings
For every paper, the requirement, reaction, and result (RRR) is different which makes it unique among all the variety available and impacts its use.
Paper is a 3 dimensional material, usually used as a base or surface with other mediums like ink and pencils. But through the project, I learned that paper can itself form many interesting things without use of any other medium.
Looking back to the M2M experience, I feel curious about the RRR of other papers that I couldn't get a chance to experiment with. I have often encountered paper techniques like quilling and folding, so it felt great to discover some of my own.