Watermark Experiments!

Some of my current experiments with watermarks and invasive plant species. Above, a freshly pulled wet sheet - a base of unbleached abaca with a top sheet of Andean pampas grass. Below, a detail of a wet watermark. For a larger view, click on the images.

Below, the pressed wet sheets being loaded into the drying box.

Above, not the best photo, but a dried sheet with its watermark! And a detail of the watermark itself below. In this series, the watermarked images are of extinct California animals, birds, and fish (more images to come soon!), in paper made from invasive California plants. I see these papers as beyond substrate, instead, they are embodying content. Or more correctly, embodying history - an abbreviated environmental history of the impact of globalization on California.