Paper Weaving 1

We're going to fold our paper to create the background for our paper weaving up our design. What we need to do first is we need to fold it in half the long way. So we want the long edges to touch. I've also heard other art teachers call this way hot dog style. We're folding the paper in a way that makes it look more like a hot dog. I'm going to make sure my edges match really neatly and line up before I crease. As I fold, I'm holding down with one hand and using the other hand to smooth this crease. Then I can go back in with my hands and my fingers to help make the crease nice and sharp. Our goal is to do our best job, so we're taking our time and folding carefully and intentionally. We don't want to waste paper or resources. Next, when you need to do is I need to draw a border along the open edges. So I'm going to look for where the long edge is opening up, I'm going to take my ruler, and I'm going to slide it until it's touching the edge. The ruler is about one inch wide, and this is going to help us make our margin really easily. Without even measuring, we're just using the width of the ruler as a guide. So it's on the long edge. It's touching really neatly. You can use a pencil to draw your line so you can see my line. I'm going to use a white oil pastel. A pencil will be more precise. So I would recommend for you all to use the pencil. All right, I've got my line. It's a little bit skinning, broken right there. But that's okay, because this is ultimately going to be on the back. Where I have these open shortages too, I'm also going to draw a line. This time, when I get to the other line, I'm going to stop. So I'm going to take it, line it up so it's touching. Hold it down. Trace until I get to this line. Now I've got the base 6 of the outside of my paper weaving. And I want to make some interesting lines to show this op art illusion. Now, it's very important that my vertical lines, even if they change shape a little bit, don't touch and don't cross over each other. So I might start by making a gentle zigzag line. I also want them to all be pretty easy to cut out because our next step is going to be cutting along these lines. If you do a line that bends backwards and forwards like 20 times, it's going to be really difficult to cut out and even more difficult to weave our strips of paper through. So any lines I'm making, I'm thinking about the next steps of the process. So that I can be very careful and very intentional. One of the things I'm making sure not to do is I'm making sure my lines are not touching and not crossing. That's based might even be a little too small. I want to try to leave about an inch of space between most of my lines. There's not a set number of lines we're drawing. It's more about the spaces between them. We want to make sure it's going to be easy. To weave our paper strips through. Could I with a pencil draw a line that goes like this? No. Because that would be crossing over top of this other line. And that would make a little pieces that would fall out when we actually cut this. We don't want our lines to touch. When we're drawing the vertical ends, we don't want them to touch, and we don't want them to cross. All right, I think I can fit one more right here. We do want them to go all the way to the bottom. Now that I have my line drawn, I really want it before I cut double check that the line designs are touching this folded edge. It's really important that we did this correctly. If you draw on the wrong side, we can flip it over and try again, but we don't want to start cutting it into a check that because we don't want to waste the paper. So you can see where my open edges, that's where I did my ruler border, where the closed folded edges is where my design lines start. The last step for setting up our background paper is to cut these design lines but stop when we get to our original long ruler line. So I'm going to take my scissors and I'm going to very, very, very, very carefully and slowly cut along each of these lines. But stop when I get to this line. So I'm cutting carefully and then stopping. As I'm cutting, I want to make sure that I'm trying to be as neat as possible. The fewer nicks and turns you have, the easier it'll be to weave your paper strips. So if I have a corner where my line turns, I want to make sure I'm moving my scissors exactly to that spot. So that I don't end up with funny little bumps or lines for holes. All of which would make the next steps harder. So I'm trying to cut as smoothly and carefully as possible to do that. I'm going slowly and making sure I'm not starting and stopping and making jagged edges. When I have a curve, I like to turn the paper so I can end up with a smooth curve. So as I have my scissors lined up, they can turn the paper as I close the scissors to make a smooth line. And I'm almost done. I'll just need to write something on this paper. So we know whose artwork it is. Of course, I need to write my name. So once I've cut it out, then I will write my name right in this margin above where I drew my lines. So I'm going to go ahead and take my writing tool. You'll use a pencil. I've got the oil pastel and write my name. I'm trying to read it as neatly as possible, so either your art teacher or me or your regular teacher when you get these back can easily pass them out. Writing your name isn't really for yourself because you already know which artwork is yours. It's really for the teachers to help them out. So we can write anything. Once you've written your name, you can take a peek of the inside. This is where we're going to be weaving our paper strips through. After you've made careful color choices about what colors you want to use to weave your artwork and why, thinking especially about color theory and how the colors are going to work next to each other and what the different colors could represent as you begin to weave, we're going to open up this black paper and begin to weave our paper strips through. So I'm going to start with just one of my paper strips. This magenta color. And we want to pretty simply go over and under every other slot. I'm going to start maybe behind this back edge, and then move it over. And under and over. And under all the way across till I get to the other side. Now because I drew an even number of lines here in the middle when I was drawing my lines instead of an odd number. It ends up on the top instead of going back down below this. If I don't like that, and if you also need that choice when you were drawing, you can hide it like that. Then I'm going to take the second strip and this time I want to do the opposite. So every time I went over my first strip, this time I'm going to go under. So I'm just taking my time and threading these through when I'm using the paper. I want to be really gentle to move slowly so it doesn't rip. It's a lot easier to be careful the first time than to have to repair something that gets broken. I would keep leaving all of the way across with all of my strips until I can't fit any more inside. I'm going to tuck this magenta edge back up. That'll be okay. So I'm going to keep weaving until I have my whole thing weaved. Then we can use a tiny bit of washable glue. And secure each of these strips in place. But only at the end, after we've weaved all of the pieces.