Saturday, September 06, 2008

Orizomegami




















A couple of pics of orizomegami papers that were made by 3rd-5th grades when I was teaching elementary art. (Actually, I called it orizomegami, as that is what I did in an after-school class once upon a time, but really we did a combination of orizomegami (folding only) and itajime (sandwiching the folded bundles in clothespins and binder clips and the like). A book I used for reference is Paper Art, by Diane Maurer-Mathison. We made some things out of the papers... some japanese stab-bound books, little holders for seals they made. And some of them were simply mounted on paper for display. These papers were some of the leftovers that kids bequethed to me (or I fished out of the trash can ... for them it was all about the process, which is something I should get back to! I'm going to see if I can find some of the pictures of the ones we mounted... many of them were stunning. I've used a few of these scraps as backgrounds for cards, like the one below. The bird was designed by my friend Mary for Prickley Pear.






4 comments:

Anonymous said...

enjoyed looking over your posts tagged elementary art. great stuff!
are you currently teaching? what grade ?

Outpost Empress said...

Hi and thanks!
I am no longer teaching (health issues), but I taught elementary art grades K-5.

Unknown said...

I teach elementary art and would like to do a similar project. What materials did you use to dye these papers?

Outpost Empress said...

Hi ~ these were done using an absorbent paper that was donated to the school... something similar would be along the order of rice paper or absorbent paper towels (the ubiquitous school kind, but bleached). The dye could be any watercolor-like dye. I used fiber-reactive dye (great color, but needs to be pre-mixed away from children)and also liquid watercolor (Sargent brand - set of eight oz. bottles). Probably a paste food coloring could be mixed with water as well.