The only paper I have ever used is your standard whit paper that you find in the store. So when we received our envelopes of different types of paper, I was very intrigued. The paper pieces I found the most interesting were the papyrus, the amate bark, and the linen paper, because they were so new to me.
For this assignment, I chose to conduct simple experiments on my paper, in order to see how each page reacted under the same condition. The paper I included in my experiment are the papyrus, amate bark, linen paper, envelope, and card. I did not include the book page from Paris because it was too cool a thing for me to ruin.
For my first experiment I decided to test different writing tools on the paper. The writing tools I used were a mechanical pencil, a colored pencil, a pen, a highlighter, and a sharpie permanent marker (in that order).
Before conducting this experiment, I thought the amate bark, and papyrus paper would be difficult to write on, but I was pleasantly surprised. All of the paper took to each writing utensil very well and very similarly. I think the most notable differences were when I used the highlighter and the Sharpie.
The highlighter glided smoothly over all of the types of paper. However, when I used the highlighter on the papyrus, amate bark, and linen paper, it's true fluorescent yellow color had been diminished considerably. This is most likely due to the dark appearance of these papers, as the paper that is white had no issues reflecting the highlighter's true color.
To me, this is an interesting observation, because it forces me to wonder how, or if, there was a method of drawing attention to certain portions of text within a document made out of a darker material. Were the texts written on these darker papers used for study? Or were they used solely for linear reading/record keeping?
The Sharpie took to each paper similarly, however it the edges of my mark did seem to bleed out just slightly on the amate bark paper. This marker is very strong, and I expected it to have high chance of bleeding through each paper. It did bleed through the envelope slight, but bleed through was very minimal for most of the pages, and virtually no existent for the papyrus.
Next, I took a close up picture of each page in comparison to the other.
Each type of paper has its own unique texture. The card paper (the first paper from the bottom) is smooth, but upon closer inspection, you can see that it has tiny dimples. Next is the envelope. The envelope is just slightly rougher the card paper, and appears to be completely smooth without any dimples or ridges.
Next is the amate bark paper. This is the most interesting and beautiful paper when looked at closely. It seems the paper may have retained a portion of the bark's pattern giving it an intricate rough looking design.
After the amate bark is the linen paper and papyrus. Both have a sort of cross hatch design, thought the papyrus has more defined lines than the linen paper. The cross hatch pattern of the linen paper comes more from its texture than its appearance.
The next mini experiment I conducted was to fold the paper.
The paper that retained its fold the best was the card. This makes sense since the card paper is the stiffest paper of the bunch. The linen paper, envelope, and amate bark paper retained their folds similarly, while the papyrus barely retained a fold at all.
The last experiment I conducted was to submerge half of each page in water.
This is where the most variation in reaction occurred. Each page acted so differently aster being submerged. The card seemed to be almost completely unaffected by the water even after drying. The envelope also displayed decent water resistance, but not as much as the card. There were water spots left on the envelope after it got wet.
The linen paper and papyrus reacted similarly. They both displayed light wrinkling after being submerged, though the papyrus seemed to be slightly more water resistant than the linen paper. However, after drying, the linen paper was almost back to normal, while the papyrus started curling in on itself.
Lastly is the amate bark paper. This is the paper that was the most affected by the water. It soaked up the water giving the wet half of the paper a much darker appearance. The water also revealed a dark spot in the paper that was not visible when it was dry. After drying however, the paper went almost back to normal. But there was a water line stained on the paper after it dried.
All in all this was a cool simple experiment. I found all of the papers to be nice and easy to write on. My favorite paper was definitely the linen paper. I really enjoyed the way it felt to write on.