Making paper!

 I’ve been meaning to make paper since first year! Finally getting round too it, I thought it would be good to lead by example, so to speak, by using paper from past projects this year that I would have otherwise recycled to make new paper. It’s a relatively simple process that I think children would both be able to do and want to do.

YouTube video(s) I found to help: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zkeybyHcI&ab_channel=MOMDOESDIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCkGEXdBqac&ab_channel=AribaArts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow5LeG-zzyg&ab_channel=MOMDOESDIY

A variety of paper types ^

I noticed that the ink from the post it notes was starting to bleed onto other pieces of paper, as with the pen ink. Given that the water it was soaking in was going to go down the drain I thought I should check (for future reference) if the ink is harmful for the environment. This lead onto generalised research into eco friendly ways of creating art - something I’ve been meaning to research into for a few weeks.

Well that’s concerning… 

But maybe it’s fine? I’m not overly sure…

Other things I looked into - not overly sure if any of these are creditable sources so I may have to do some more research but it all makes sense;

Interesting, I can use newspaper by the looks of things and printed documents in general. Highly useful that printing is okay for the environment as that will no doubt be the method that would have to be used long term if this book was a success, even if not on a small scale production for the hand in of this project. Clearly need to be looking for plant based substances though.

So, is this watercolour vs. Acrylic paint?.. does this include the ink from pens? A lot of inks and paints are water soluble, not too sure what water based means exactly but I’m assuming it means something similar.

Need to avoid solvent based inks, whatever they are!

This must be watercolour vs. Acrylic… right?.. whoooooo knows

So definitely not acrylic paint, which is certainly not a problem given my dislike for it as a medium!

Just wanted to double check! This makes sense given the plastic nature of acrylic and the oily nature of oil paint, as opposed to the water base of watercolour paint - this brings into question methods such as screen printing and Lino cut, something I need to enquire over with the uni.

^^^ convenient, as arguably my favoured medium to work with! I’m not too sure about ink pads because they aren’t paint but they act the same way (roughly) as watercolour paint…

At this point, I’m just trying to understand what actually makes these mediums bad for the environment - to see if there is a theme at all. Need to stay away from petroleum based mediums!

Using vegan materials would make the most sense, it’s then more widely accessible and doesn’t exclude anyone and again, conveniently my watercolour paints are Windsor & Newton so there’s no issue there!

Soooo… that’s all very confusing and I’m not fully sure what exactly to believe but because the actual illustrations I’ll be making for the book itself won’t be too big of a collection and I can keep them stored or responsibly dispose of them, as long as I’m not using materials that are bad from the environment purely by existing, the way I see it I only really need to be concerned about how I actually produce the book. So eco friendly printing methods and maybe if I want to use something like Lino cut then I will have to look into how environmentally friendly it all is and think about potential ways I can reduce any waste. This is something I can look into a bit closer to the time though.

Kind of find this hard to believe but if it’s true then that’s very interesting! Presumably there are no issues with something like etching as there is cutting involved and no scraps - the chemicals, on the other hand may be a different story!

Paper making continued:

Checking the paper the following day and it didn't seem to be doing much in terms of the paper breaking down so I went back to YouTube to get a few more tips and figure out what to do next and found that adding hot water can help;

A couple of hours later:

It actually seems to have worked! Just not enough to create a pulp so it was evident that I needed to use a blender;

The paper making set up!

yuckkkkkkkkk!

The first attempt did not work... The towel pulled the pulp apart and soaked up the water without really any way of releasing it for the next attempt so I used a sponge instead as they did in one of the many videos I watched - using the same method just without the towel.

IT WORKED!!! I have (very wet) paper in the making. Not perfect but I think that is because of the frame I used and the depth of it but if it works as an experiment then that is something I can look into.

I tried to make a second batch from the same pulp but there wasn't enough so it was too thin and just fell apart but that it a good thing to learn - there needs to be enough pulp for it to work so I will do a second round and see what I can create!