Six-Week Papermaking Course

Join book artist and paper expert Mandy Bran­nan to dis­cov­er the cre­at­ive pos­sib­il­it­ies of paper­mak­ing, using both tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese tech­niques and mod­ern recyc­ling techniques. 

Mandy’s years of prac­tic­al exper­i­ence, know­ledge of his­tor­ic and con­tem­por­ary paper­mak­ing and under­stand­ing of mater­i­als will facil­it­ate an explor­at­ive learn­ing envir­on­ment that encour­ages new ideas. In this course, Mandy will encour­age you to push tra­di­tion­al tech­niques and paper­mak­ing for book arts; inspir­ing you to think big in order to cre­ate new, excit­ing papers. 

Mandy Bran­nan is our Maker in Res­id­ence, based in our Strat­ford work­shop, from Monday 21^st Octo­ber – Wed­nes­day 27^th Novem­ber. Find out more about her res­id­ency here)

In this course you will learn how to:

Pre­pare fibres by steam­ing and hand-beat­ing plant material
Work with recycled pulps and found paper
Cre­ate exper­i­ment­al paper sheets by com­bin­ing both kozo fibers and recycled pulp Use dec­or­at­ive tech­niques from pig­ment­a­tion, pulp paint­ing and layering For­age and embed plant fibres from the wild Cre­ate large scale, col­lab­or­at­ive pieces

Par­ti­cipants will leave with a com­pre­hens­ive under­stand­ing of the social and cul­tur­al import­ance of paper­mak­ing through­out his­tory. You will come away from the course with a vari­ety of exper­i­ment­al samples, and adapt­ive cre­at­ive techniques. 

Course timetable:

This course runs every Monday for six weeks, from Monday 21^st Octo­ber to Monday 25^th Novem­ber. Stu­dents will be divided into two sep­ar­ate groups: 

Group A: 10:30 — 12:30

Group B: 14:30 — 16:30

Please indic­ate your group pref­er­ence in the applic­a­tion form. We will do our best to accom­mod­ate your first choice. 

Applic­a­tion Process:

We’re look­ing for a group of UCL staff and stu­dents who are inter­ested in all things papermaking! 

Wheth­er you’re inter­ested in this course for pro­fes­sion­al or per­son­al reas­ons, we’re inter­ested in host­ing a group of par­ti­cipants with diverse interests, who are pas­sion­ate about mak­ing and are com­mit­ted to learn­ing a mul­ti­tude of vari­ous paper­mak­ing tech­niques; bring­ing cre­ativ­ity and exper­i­ment­al flair to the course. 

To apply for this six-week course, please let us know why you’re inter­ested via this form, by Monday 23^rd Septem­ber, at 12:00. We will noti­fy all suc­cess­ful applic­ants by Fri­day 27^th Septem­ber. You must be an induc­ted mem­ber of the Insti­tute of Mak­ing to apply to this course. 

Note: you must com­mit to all six ses­sions of this mas­ter­class. Because of the spe­cial­ist mater­i­als that this mas­ter­class requires, and the anti­cip­ated pop­ular­ity of this series, we ask that you do not book this series unless you can guar­an­tee that you will attend every session.

Thanks for book­ing our six-week paper­mak­ing adventure!

When? You are booked onto the morn­ing group which meets weekly on Mondays from 10:30 – 12:30, from 21^st Octo­ber until the final ses­sion on 25^th November.

Where? This course takes place in the Insti­tute of Mak­ing Strat­ford Studio. 

The full address is: Insti­tute of Mak­ing, Marshg­ate Build­ing, UCL East, 7 Sid­ings Street, Strat­ford, Lon­don E20 2AE

Dir­ec­tions to our space

Note: Please do com­mit to all six ses­sions of this mas­ter­class. Because of the spe­cial­ist mater­i­als that this mas­ter­class requires and the pop­ular­ity of this series, we ask par­ti­cipants to hon­our their com­mit­ment to every ses­sion in the course.

Please let us know if you have any access requirements in order to attend this booking by emailing members@instituteofmaking.org.uk.

Contact events@instituteofmaking.org.uk if you have any additional questions.

We look forward to seeing you soon!