Paper Plaid

I've been keen to get into some Japanese Shibori work.  So as a very first step in that direction, I decided to make some blue paper plaid ☺ 

Traditional plaid is a pattern on cloth of stripes with different widths that cross each other to form squares (Merriam Webster)

The stripes for this paper project were created by both 

dyeing blue ink stripes 

and 

bleaching out white stripes 

on light blue craft paper.

How to Do it Yourself:
You will need:
Blue craft paper from a traditional stationery Scrap Book
Blue Ink
Bleach
Cling wrap

Clamps

2 metal rulers

A long flat dish 

Cover the rulers and the long flat dish in cling wrap to protect these from being stained by the ink.
Fan fold  a piece of blue paper.  Make the folds slightly wider than the rulers.  Clamp the rulers in the centre of the folded strip.  This prevents the dye from spreading too far.  Place a little water and ink in the long flat dish. 

Mix the ink and water.  Dip the edge of the paper into fold stack in.  

 

Move the clamps round to the other side and dip the opposite edges into the ink.

Allow to dry.  Check to see if the ink has soaked the whole way through the paper.  If it has not, reverse fold then repeat the process, so that both sides of the paper are equally ink striped.

 

Unfold the paper and then refold in the opposite direction and repeat the process to create stripes in the opposite direction.

Allow to dry.  Refold the paper fan, creating new fold lines between the old ones.  repeat the process as above, but this time dip into bleach instead to create white stripes.
Vary the patterns by creating more or less ink and bleach stripes.

 

The next blog post will be about making these paper art pieces into gift bags.

 A combination of Scottish Plaid with a Japanese-like technique  makes for a fun and very satisfying pastime ☺

And to finish off -Here's Albert's take the subject:

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy Albert Einstein