Sustainable Handmade Paper

 The fall semester had started late August and after experimenting with a bunch of different plant fibers, I knew that handmade paper had to be a part of my senior exhibition.  I knew I wanted my paper to be soft for printmaking purposes so I decided early on that abaca was going to be the base of my paper - I could make a thicker paper for durability. Knowing these things, I decided on using abaca and hemp for my paper. I chose these because of a few things, texture, color and how it takes ink.  For my show, I have made many sheets that are 17 inches by 22 inches for my larger prints and then smaller circle sheets for my other prints. The larger sheets I made thicker than the circles due to how many layers each print will consist of. A little about my show: I have researched many different species of mushrooms but decided to focus on six species. Each of the larger prints will be on the mushrooms in their natural environment - in the ground or on a tree. The prints consi...

 I did the cooking process of the kozo and gampi the day before and let it sit in the same liquid it cooked in overnight. Today, I started the beating process of the kozo around 10 and it had beat until 12:30. Kozo has about the same consistency as the mitsumata - pretty slimy.  Then, I decided to take a decent amount of the hemp pulp and add the koalin clay to it to see the difference in texture and color. In a measuring cup, I added around 1/4th of a cup of clay to 4 cups of water per the directions and let the clay disperse into the water then added it to the pulp. The clay is meant to give the paper a more smooth and opaque quality once dry. Pictured, you can see the difference the clay made with the dry sheets, it was less transparent and more smooth. After that, I started the beating process of the gampi without sizing around 12:45 and as soon as it started I knew it was not going to take long to beat. It only beat for about an hour and was already a fine pulp. 

   So, I know its been a month since the last time I was able to work on everything, I was working full time over the summer so it was hard to make time to drive to campus to work on everything. I started the cooking process of the Japanese Mitsumata around 3 and it boiled for about two hours.  While that was cooking, I started the soaking process of the Philippine Gampi and the Thai Kozo While all that was going on, I decided to beat the hemp which comes in a condensed sheet in the holland beater, not much just a little and then I also decided not to add sizing to this batch just to see how it held up in sheet form.  Then while alllll of that was going on, I experiemented with all of the pigments I had, there were about 12 different pigments. I used the chinese mitsumata since I had an abundance of it. Some of the pigments were very watery and some of them were thick and chunky. The ones that were thick did not mix well with the fibers. Later in the evening, I went ...

 On May 18th, I had my last workshop at Contemporary Craft. This one was based on working with plant fibers aka the workshop I was most excited about. We had made paper mainly out of flax and then we added some random greens from the instructor's garden and yard. We also got out collages back from a previous class.  When I got back to Slippery Rock, I had taken my plant paper made from that day back to the printmaking studio to press and dry.  I also have the Japanese Mitsumata soaking in water preparing to be cooked and processed. May 19, 2021 Today, I decided to experiment with the set of pigments I bought from Carriage House. I wanted to experiment with two completely different fibers to see how each would react to the pigments so I used abaca which is very soft in texture and kenaf which is very coarse and dense.  I stuck with one color to really be able to see the difference in pigmentation. I made six sheets of each and let them dry overnight. 

To start this day, I started the beating process of the Chinese Mitsumata at around 5pm, I know a late day. With the fibers, I added in about two tablespoons worth of sizing in the beater. I think I explained in a previous post about sizing but I will explain it again, it’s an agent you put in with the fibers so that when you are actually ready to make the paper, they hold up better and when you put things on the paper like ink it doesn’t bleed or cause the paper to fall apart. This is something I really knew I needed when I wanted to start making paper, my main focus as an art major is printmaking and if I want to add color to my prints I tend to use watercolor; sizing will really allow me to actually use the paper I make in my craft. Anyways, back to the mitsumata, I had it in the beater for only twenty minutes before checking it and it was already beat into a really nice fine pulp but just to make sure, I kept it in the beater for about an hour. While the mitsumata was in the beat...

So on this lovely Thursday, I had taken the cook flax and the kenaf fibers and rinsed them on the solution they had been cooked in until the water had run clear.  I had then started the beating process of the kenaf fibers at  around 11:30am. With the amount of fiber I had, roughly one pound, I decided to add sizing, two tablespoons worth, into the beater along with enough water to completely cover the fiber. Now, sizing is something you add to the fibers to help the actual paper hold up better once it is in sheet form. In order for the beating process to really work, you need to gradually add the fibers into the beater so it does not overwork the large blades. The kenaf had beat until 3pm and I then loaded all the contents into a container to put into the fridge until I  was ready to actually make sheets of paper.  Now since the beating process takes a good bit of time, I decided it was time to cook the Chinese Mitsumata. In the pot, I had the one pound of soaked wat...