Introduction

In our project, we combined Chemistry and Art to preserve some of our Sewanee memories. We did this by creating a book full made of handmade paper with prints of flowers from various places around Sewanee that had special meaning to us. The prints were either a Cyanotype or a Vandyke and the pulp we used to make the paper was made from favorite old pieces of clothing. Therefore, in doing this, we were able to combine cherished memories from home with new memories formed at Sewanee.

Background

All the ideas brought together in our project are from previous labs we've enjoyed in class. We combined three different labs to produce this once project. We started out with the idea of making a type of scrapbook of items found around campus that had special meaning to us and would serve as a reminder of our days at Sewanee even after we are gone. With this idea of preservation f memories in mind, we began to contemplate how we would preserve them, and decided that paper would be needed to make a book. Earlier in the semester, we had learned how to make pulp and turn it into handmade paper. We felt that making our own paper for the book would make our book even more personal. To take the memories to an even more personal level, we decided to use old favorite pieces of clothing to make the pulp for the paper. Julia donated an old pair of her favorite jeans and Dena donated a towel that she used in her childhood.

Once the pulp and paper were made, we had to decide how to preserve memories in our book. Cyanotypes and VanDyke prints of flowers and leaves that we had collected from various places around Sewanee seemed like the perfect addition to our books. We collected the flowers and leaves from around our dorms and other places that we spend a great deal of time at here at Sewanee. The Cyanotypes and Vandyke prints added another dimension to our project because we would be doing them on a type of paper that we had not previously done them on. We had used pre-made paper in the lab that we did in class, so making the prints on handmade paper added a new element to this project. This new element added a personal touch to a previously impersonal alternative photography process.

Procedure

Beater

Clothing or material to make into pulp

Containers to store pulp

seam ripper

scissors

sizing

deckle box and deckle mold (screen)

buckets

felts and pellons

drying board

sponge

rolling pin

various beakers

graduated cylinder

stopwatch

chemicals to make Cyanotypes and VanDyke prints

UV box

developing trays for the water baths

fixer for the VanDyke prints

flowers to dry and use in the prints

1. Gather materials or clothing that are to be beaten, if they are old pieces of clothing, rinse them thoroughly to make sure that no detergent residue remains. (otherwise the beater will find the detergent and produce mountains of bubbles!) Set up the apparatus that will be used to make the test wafers. You will need a graduated cylinder. funnel, tin can, and

2. Remove all seams, sippers, and buttons from the article of clothing.

3. Tear the article into strips and then cut the strips into once inch squares.

4. Perform all checks to ensure that the beater is calibrated and ready to used.

5. Fill the beater with water and turn it on, keeping the beater setting at 30.

6. Add the material to be beaten.

7. Gradually lower the beater setting until it reaches 1. This is where beating begins. Record the time.

8. While beating is going on, take samples of the pulp from the beater to make a wafer. This wafer will be made to test for drainage time, recording the results in a chart. To do this, take a sample of pulp from the beater and record the time on the clock.

9. Make a wafer with this pulp by using a tin can with the top and bottom removed as a deckle. . . .

10. Repeat process of making a wafer and recording the drainage time until it can be observed that the drainage time has leveled off. This lets you know that you can stop the beating process.

11. Turn off the beater and unplug it.

12. Drain the beater, separating the pulp form the water.

13. Store pulp and thoroughly clean the beater before putting it away.

1. Set up deckle box, making sure that the drain faucet is tightly closed.

2. Add water and desired amount of pulp.

3. Add desired amount of sizing.

4. Agitate well with mesh screen, being sure to break up all clumps of pulp.

5. Drain deckle box

6. Open deckle box and remove screen with pulp on it.

7. Cooch the sheet of paper onto the felts and pellons,

8. Transfer the wet sheet of paper to drying board.

9. Repeat process until desired amount of paper is made.

1. Follow same procedure for making a sheet of paper as mentioned above, only making each sheet of paper with a different amount of sizing. Label and record each sheet of paper and how much sizing it has.

2. Let sheets dry.

3. Once sheets are dry, sprinkle a few drops of water on them, and record how each sheet reacts. The water should not immediately absorb into the sheet, nor should it be repelled. An equilibrium should be established.

4. Look at the data and determine how much sizing will be needed to make a sheet of paper for your particular project.

1. Gather the dried paper for the prints and flatten them with an iron. This heat also helps to activate the sizing in the paper.

2. Prepare the solution in a 1:1 ratio

3. Spread the desired amount of solution on each sheet of paper and allow them to dry.

4. Once the sheets are dry, arrange the dried flowers on them in the desired pattern and place in the UV box.

5. Expose them for the desired amount of time, usually 5-8 minutes.

6. Remove for the UV box and place in water baths until the yellow is removed from the prints.

7. Hang to dry.

1. Gather the dried paper for the prints and flatten them with an iron. This heat also helps to activate the sizing in the paper.

2. Prepare the solution in a 1:4 ratio.

3. Repeat steps 3-6 from the cyanotype procedure.

4. Before the final water bath, place the sheet in a solution of fixer.

5. Hang to dry.

1. Gather dried prints together

2. Flatten with iron if so desired.

3. Label and bind book.

amount of sizing

Cyanotype or Vandyke solution

Pulp types

 Exposure time in UV box

Beating time of both pulps

Papermaking process

Application of Cyanotype/Vandyke solution

Objects photographed (flowers and leaves)

Observations and Data

 Pulp/beating:

Chart 1 -

Sample drainage times for beating of the denim pulp

 Start time on clock: 3:20

Stop time on clock: 3:36

Chart 2 -

Sample drainage times for beating of Cotton Towel

Start time on clock: 10.43

Stop time on clock: 10.55

Chart 3-

Sizing trials for Blue Jean pulp

Chart 4-

Sizing trials for Cotton Towel pulp

Spreading the chemicals with a dropper and slide had a streaky effect on the papers. It was suggested to us to apply the chemicals with a sponge brush. This was the most successful method for applying the solution.

Exposure time for all prints in UV box- 7 minutes

It became apparent that the sizing did not evenly and fully penetrate the sheets of paper. With both types of paper and prints, yellow spots remained after the developing process. These yellow spots indicated the places where the sizing had not fully penetrated.

When placing the prints in the rinsing baths, the chemistry of this art project became apparent. It could easily be observed that a reaction was taking place because the top layers of the solution on the papers came off into the water.

Conclusions

All in all, this was a very worthwhile project because we were able to combine Chemistry and Art in such a manner that we learned how deal with variables and unexpected changes in our project and still produced a functional and useful memory book. We were able to produce what we thought we could in a reasonable amount of time. Certain aspects, like making the paper, took longer than expected. We then decided to omit two other materials we were originally going to make paper from, both old T-shirts. The images produced by the VanDyke and Cyanotypes did not turn out as clear as we previously had thought they would. On the other hand, the texture of the paper that contributed to the poorer quality of the images could also be seen as an artistic quality that adds character to the project. The sizing clumped in certain areas and the chemicals stuck on a little darker than we had wanted, but this also adds an artistic element to the project. Overall, the handmade paper added even more of a personalized touch to the project due to its unique texture and the distribution of chemicals due to the that texture of the paper.