Kudzu Papermaking for Beginners By Nancy Basket Equipment: Three 12 x 20 vats with lids Twelve felts Three 10 x 12 white plastic needle point canvas stiffener sheets cut in half Blender Brown paper towels Water Paper to recycle colored construction paper scraps from the dye cut machine work well. (Newspaper yellows and ink gets on your hands, not recommended) Students can recycle sort and tear colored paper into quarter size pieces. Kudzu leaves, herbs, flowers in season Place to dry paper: countertop, clothesline. Drying racks don’t work. Set Up: Three vats and lids set up on an 8 foot table allow six students at a time to make paper in a 45 minute session. Place 6 wet felts on the lids. The others are to get the water from the screens. Fill the vats less than half full of water. Place the 6 screens on the lids. Have students write their names big with crayon in the middle of the paper towel. Making pulp The easiest way to make kudzu paper is to cut kudzu leaves into small pieces and blend in a blender with water and paper scraps. The paper will have small pieces of green leaves in it when it dries. To get more of the kudzu fiber, soak a plastic container full of kudzu leaves and water to cover OUTSIDE for two weeks. Put the lid on the container. It will smell terrible. Pour off the water, put more water in to cover and stir in a cup of bleach. Stir and let soak for an hour. Rinse out the bleach thoroughly to dissipate the smell. Squeeze the water out of a large handful and let kudzu dry in the ball shapes. Cut the processed kudzu leaves into 1" pieces. Put a handful of leaves into a blender with a handful of recycled paper scraps and water almost to the top of the blender. Put on blender lid and blend on high until the mixture resembles green grits. (If the blender lugs down and doesn’t blend, take out some pulp, put more water in and try again.) Make three different colors of pulp. Put one blender full of each color in each vat. Make another blender full of each color and keep in a container ready to make the vats thicker as each group of 6 students make a sheet. Making paper To condition children for this new experience, introduce the bright colors as flavors. Tell the students that the colors are "milkshakes for your finger tips, not your lips." Students bring their paper towel with them to the vat and lay it on the lid. (No one gets to choose their color. It all works out on trading day where they keep half of their paper and trade the other half for a different color.) Work as an assembly line, everyone does the same thing together. Mix the pulp in the vat with both hands until it is evenly distributed. Get the screen in your hands. Scoop it down like a shovel to the bottom of the vat. (Stay on your own side. Be a good neighbor.) Count to five. One hand on each side of the screen, gently lift the screen out of the water. Keep it flat over the vat. The teacher places the paper towel on top of the screen, name side up. The student puts one hand on the bottom of the screen, one hand on the top and gently presses the water out. Turn the screen over, onto the lid, screen side up. Lay the felt out flat on top of the screen. Soak up (absorb) the water into the cloth and squeeze the water out over the vat. It can’t hold anymore. It’s saturated. Repeat several times. Put the cloth on the table. Flip one corner of the screen till it comes away clean. Take off the screen and set it down beside the vat. Put two hands under the paper and take it to the drying area. Paper dries overnight. When paper is dry, start at one corner and peel it off of the paper towel. One side is smooth and one side is rough. Those are textures. Clean up Vats can be used for about three days. After that the water turns slimy. Pour everything out behind a bush and start again. Never pour pulp down sink drains. Projects After making the first sheet of paper and while students are still at the vat, the following variations can be done. Put the screen back on the paper and get the water out before taking to the drying place. Plant parts, leaves, Spanish moss can be imbedded into the paper by placing a thin sheet of pulp over the first sheet. This thicker paper can be made and used as book covers. Have three different colors in cups for students to take four fingers full and drop gently on the paper like rain drops. Do not touch the background sheet or you’ll get holes in the paper. This I call "flinking." The paper looks like calico fabric or a Jackson Pollack painting. Make "rainbow children" by taking four fingers full of colored pulp like a paint brush and place in the middle of the background piece for the face. Another color is for the hair. A third color is for the two eyes and a mouth. No noses. (The colors run into each other and you can’t distinguish features.) This is called pulp painting. Use the dye cut machine to make simple shapes out of plastic needle point canvas. Use both positive and negative images. Each child chooses a shape. Holding only the sides of the shape, dip it into a different color. Teacher places it upside down on the right side of the wet sheet. Students press gently on the shape only, remove the shape and place the screen back on to get out the water. When dry it is a ready made card. Dry paper can be cut into shapes in dye cut machines and glued to construction paper for cards using both positive and negative images. Substitute any plant material or none at all to make recycled paper from scraps.