I use a lot of handpainted paper in my work for making collages and illustrations from cut paper. One of the kinds of paper I fell in love with many years ago is called paste paper. It’s a kind of surface design where you cover the paper with a tinted paste and then draw, scrape and press patterns into it. The thing I love the most about it is that it tends to make richly textured patterns that are close to monochromatic, so you can introduce texture into a design without adding a lot of different colors. There are many theories about how paste paper patterns got started but it’s been a technique practiced since the middle ages.
Because I didn’t know how to make paste paper, years ago, I bought scrap packs from an artist named Cristina Hajosy who lives near Boston. I found her on Etsy and she sold these lovely scrap packs of all kinds of colors and patterns that she made in her studio. Then a couple of years ago I saw a paste paper class offered at the MN Center for Book Arts. I signed up immediately! My chance to learn how to make these cool papers.
Like many techniques, there are many ways of making paste and every artist has a favorite recipe. Unfortunately, the papers I made in that class were terrible. The materials we had to work with left the paper feeling very plasticky and the designs looked muddy. It was nothing like Cristina’s scrap pack papers and the instructor left us all feeling more confused than confident in making more.
I noticed the other day that my paper scrap bins were getting low on paste paper scraps because I am teaching more with them again than I have in several years. So I reached out the Cristina and asked if she could give me a lesson. I knew I loved her papers already so I decided that I should go right to the source. She and I spent a couple of hours talking all things paste this afternoon and then I spent a couple of hours playing in the studio.
Right now, I am cautiously optimistic? Everything is still wet, so I can’t tell yet if I have the texture that I was hoping for, but things look promising. My paste had some issues. We used a plain cornstarch and water paste with acrylic paint as the pigment. I cooked it up this morning but by the time I mixed my pigments in, it had gelled up maybe a little too much and it was sort of crumbly/chunky when I mixed in the paints. I am going to make another batch and try tinting it sooner. It seems I need to do a little tweaking to find just my perfect recipe. It’s always good to go back to being a beginner again at something and remember that it’s part of the process to not be great at something the first time.