The Big Game

Breathes there an artist with space so wide that all of the small and large scraps of paper, half sheets of cold press or the trim from a 13 x 19 after making a smaller print, or what about all of those starts and stops and the result is a whole bunch of paper laying around encouraging dust bunnies to take up residence and make themselves at home?

Now you could be overcome with one of those nasty Spring Cleaning urges and toss the whole lot out like a good little Martha Stewart, but you know that's not going to happen so what to do?

I think you should take all of that paper, cut it down to some useful size and pad it so you can carry it, store it, find it when you need it instead of just letting it sit getting the corners torn, or the emulsion blotched or the screen door patch until your parents are caught on a Saturday night with the cistern empty and there's T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Now I know you don't want that so let's make a plan, get all the tools and get busy.

First you need paper, but you already have that or you wouldn't be reading this blather so let's move right along.

You need something to cut with, paper knife, paper cutter, box cutter, or at last resort scissors.

Come-on,. You know how impossible it is to cut several things the same size with scissors. And you need them the same size if you want this to work.

And you need a bottle of rubber cement.

Now that's not too much of a supply list. I'll bet you even have most of it right now. In a bind you can use Elmer's white glue, the kid every kid has to buy for school and never uses and it turns yellow in the package and then it won't come out and you spend half a day with an ice pick and a screw driver and boiling water trying to get it out when what you should do it admit you bought this when you were in school a thousand years ago and now you are trying to pass it along to your kid like some bowl of green Jell-O. (You know that Jell-O has a half-life of 400K years? Back when the dinosaurs roamed there was yellow Jell-o but over the eons it turned red and then purple and finally green just before it attacks and swallows everything! Didn't you ever see Steve McQueen in The Blob?)

But I used Elmer's Rubber cement and it worked just fine.

If you want to really do a professional job, find a piece of cardboard, not the kind you pack books in but the thin stuff that backs picture frames at Fred Meyer or comes in new shirts under the ten thousand pins you have to remove before you can get at the shirt and see if it is really the size it says it is on the package.

Yeah, that kind. Now cut it the same size as your paper and add it to the pile.

Okay so now you have all the supplies ready, you need a coupla more things. Either get the big-ass bankers clips, some call them spring clips or the deluxe tool, two pencils and some rubber bands.

Okay, take your paper all nicely cut and sized and the cardboard you snitched from the shirt or blouse you were going to give to your Squeeze for Valentines and stack them together. You can make this as large as you dare but for the first try I'd suggest no more than fifty sheets.

Take the stack and bind it with the spring clips on both sides making it tight and square. (If the sheets are too big for the banker's clips use the pencils tying the ends together with rubber bands until you have a tight grip which looks like the paper was caught in Grammy's laundry ringer.)

Now take the rubber cement and run it along the seam. Don't be shy or worry about spilling, this is why you use rubber cement, when it dries it rubs up like firth and goes away. Set it aside to dry for at least ten minutes, fifteen if you can stand the wait.

When it is dry, do it all again. Let it dry.

See above.

I'd say at least three coats. If you are the suspenders and a belt kind do five coats.

When it is dry for the last time remove the clips or the pencil vice and you are done, a pad of sheets you can carry around to sketch on, grab for a quick painting when the inspiration hits you in the middle of some long, long, long sporting event with two unevenly match teams where it will be a total blow out but you have to sit and try to watch anyway cause you want to see the new Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdales and the puppy and you know it will be ten times more interesting than anything except maybe the chance to see a wardrobe malfunction where the giggly bits of some singer might fall out except the singer is so skinny that there are no giggly bits and then you will have wasted three or four hours except for the Clydesdales and the puppy.

Oh yes, Rubber Cement can be used as a party favor so work in a well ventilated area and no smoking cause rubber cement is highly flammable and you shouldn't be smoking in the first place and even though setting the place on fire just to see the Thing on the Couch move for the first time this year is tempting you don't want to raise your insurance rates so maybe just throwing water on him will do the same thing and be less costly in the future.

Or maybe you just want to watch that game?