My first paste paper course.

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A paste paper on the style of the spanish master Antolín Palomino.

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Last June 18 I gave my first paste paper course.

Of the traditional techniques of paper decoration it is the one that completes, together with marbling, the duo of those who were developed by bookbinders.

For me, an amateur bookbinder since I was18 years, it was an obligation to be able to teach this technique.

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Spreading the painting on the paper...

...until covering the whole sheet.

Making uniform the layer of painting .

Making the first lines...

... and squaring them as a background.

Making now the main lines...

...and crossing them a second time.

Printing a "digital" fingerprint on every intersection.

The model is finished with a little branch on every square.

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For me, the target of the course was clear:

if the key of marbling is the regulation of the ox gall,

the key of the paste papers is the water, the hydration.

The hydration of the paste, that one of the paintings, that one of the papers.

To determine the water that every element involved in this type of painting has in each moment and to act consequently is what allows to arrive to good results.

And this is what I wanted that my pupils learnt.

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Another way to spread the painting, folding the paper by the middle...

... closing it completely...

... and opening it again...

...that could be made also with two different sheets...

...with interesting results.

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The question was to do a lively and practical course,

so, after explaining the pastes with which we would work,

corn, wheat, potato and rice,

the thinners that we would use, metilcelulose, Irish moss, arabic gum,

and the way of preparing all of them,

we happen to paint papers.

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A pattern with imaginary calligraphy.

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At first we paint monochrome papers with traditional patterns.

But, as time passed, papers were coming with more colors and with entire freedom of topics.

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When spreading the coloured painting...

...and working it...

...with spontaneity...

...we arrive to paint another pattern inspired by the master Palomino.

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The Ugo Zovetti style...

...adapts itself easily to...

...the floral painting...

...born to be gazed on its entirety...

...or bit by bit.

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Paste papers, as marbling, serves today for something more than to paint papers that will be cut away and used like endleaves on a book: from the masters Zovetti and Palomino, and from many others more, we know that we can paint papers simply to contemplate them, and perhaps, to think that the world is cozier when we surround ourselves with something of beauty.

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