Research point - Paper as medium.

Look at a range of illustrators and artists who use paper as a medium rather than just a surface within their work. How have they used paper and what processes have they put it through? Reflect on their working processes in your learning log.

My first thought here was the work of Clive Stevens which I found in The Encyclopedia of Origami and Papercraft Techniques. I love this book, I've had it for years but I still find things to inspire me in it. Stevens explains his working technique very nicely here. Also from this book is Suzie Balazs (be patient, the site takes forever to load) who paints with coloured paper pulp. This sounds like a very laborious way to make a picture. She makes a bed of cotton pulp then uses a thin layer of dyed pulp to make the image, embedding paper into the pulp and then using pastel and watercolour to add detail. The finished images are very rich, and I'm not surprised to find that she also works in pastel.
Apsley Paper Trail has a number of paper mâché sculptures by Phillip Cox who coincidentally also appears in the  The Encyclopedia of Origami and Papercraft Techniques. His work was used to illustrate The Tales of Robin Hood visitor attraction in Nottingham.
Kate Forrester cuts out from paper to make her intricate designs which were (or maybe still are?) used by Mc Donalds on their lorries. I like her use of lettering generally.
Rob Ryan also does cutouts and their styles are very similar. I don't think that I would have the patience........
Pop up books mix paper as medium with more traditional illustration techniques. Personal favourites are Say Aaah by Mick Inkpen which was bought for my children but I have hung on to, and Il Etait une Fois by Benjamin Lacombe which is an absolutely mind bending work of art.
I can find lots of examples of origami inspired designs but Kyla McCallum, trading as Foldability, is the only person that I can find who is using actual origami as an illustration tool. She did this cover for Elle Decoration
From this link I found these little animated gifs by Charles Young. He uses paper to create miniature sculptures which he animates. They are brilliantly quirky but simple. The 2017 University of Hertfordshire degree show had a lot of students making models and photographing them to use as illustrations. which is a similar idea. Hattie Newman makes very detailed models for companies like the American company Home Depot and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. I wasn't surprised to find that she has a team of assistants to create her models.
I feel that I should mention artists who use books as a base for artistic creation but I don't like to think of books being damaged even if their content is obsolete.
All the techniques that I have looked at seem to lack spontaneity. I do like the finished effects but it would be very easy to make a detailed but lifeless piece, it shows how skilled the artists who make these works are that they still manage to make them look quite lively. The cut-outs are the most spontaneous way of using paper as a medium, the constant fear of cutting through something important might help to keep the creator on their toes.
I am slightly bothered by the distinction between paper and collage in this category (and possibly decoupage too). If paper is the medium then is coloured paper more collage that paper art? A lot of the artists here rely on colour to reinforce their use of paper so the colour is also the medium.