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| In the Small, Small Pond | © 1993, Denise Fleming, Colored cotton fiber https://www.nccil.org/exhibitions/painting-with-paper-denise-fleming |
To create her illustrations, Ms. Fleming uses a unique process which involves painting brightly colored fibers onto handmade sheets of paper. To begin, she places wet paper pulp on a screen which holds it in a layer and allows the water to drain. Then she adds colored paper fibers suspended in water onto this base layer to make pictures. She'll pour these colors onto the pulp layer from cups or use squeeze bottles to control the placement of the bright colors in a technique similar to painting. Often she uses stencils to further define her images. Sometimes she adds pine needles, dried leaves, or coffee grounds to create unusual texture. If you look closely, you might see the colored fiber in her artwork. (NCCIL, 2005)
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| This Is the Nest That Robin Built © 2018, Denise Fleming http://www.denisefleming.com |
In her newest book, This Is the Nest That Robin Built, Ms. Fleming uses gelatin printing and collage to create animals and nature scenes. She decided to change her illustration process because after 25 years, pulp painting was taking a toll on her health requiring long hours standing hunched over a screen (Von Drasek, 2018). Ms. Fleming loves the freedom of gelatin printing and she's excited to share her new technique in Printmaking & Collage on her website. It's interesting to compare the pictures in this new book to her previous illustrations made with paper pulp. Can you spot the differences?
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| The Giant Golden Book of Cat Stories © 1953 by Elizabeth Coatsworth & Feodor Rojankovsky |
As a child Ms. Fleming loved to read The Giant Golden Book of Cat Stories by Elizabeth Coatsworth and illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky. The book's beautiful illustrations influenced her artwork (MacMillan Publishers, 2011).
In this Reading Rockets interview, Denise Fleming talks about her childhood,
her father's influence, and how she became the illustrator she is today.
her father's influence, and how she became the illustrator she is today.
Ms. Fleming gives a demonstration of her papermaking process in this video by MacMillan Publishers. She makes sketches ahead of time and arranges them in order of the story before she creates the illustrations. Her family helps by listening and commenting on her ideas.
Denise Fleming was a featured speaker for the University of Findlay. In this video she demonstrates how she cuts stencils and squeezes bottles of colored cotton fiber onto larger sheets of paper to create her illustrations.
This video by Blick Art demonstrates a simple way to try pulp painting with tissue paper and includes a downloadable lesson plan. It's a fun and easy art project inspired by the illustrations of Denise Fleming's picture books!
