Straw Paper for Art Applications – A Paper Development Study

Each paper grade, especially art papers have their own unique requirements by the artist using the paper in regard to mechanical integrity, surface topography, optical appearance and printability based on the unique artistic process applied during printing. Wheat straw fiber, a left over product from agricultural operations, can be used in many papermaking grades if properly processed prior to papermaking. A wheat straw containing art paper for artistic water color, oil, and encaustic (wax) painting applications was development and produced with a 10% and 15% northern bleached softwood content using a 12-inch (304 mm) wide laboratory scale paper machine, operated at a speed of 3.76 ft/min (1.14 m/min) with and without operating a calendar. The basis weight of the paper product was 350 g/m² with a caliper of 1050 μm to 1640 μm, The paper products burst load in psi ranged between 2.49 and 4.71. Tensile peak load measured in kilogram-force (kgf) per 15mm wide testing strip ranged from 4.08 to 9.32 for the machine direction and 1.96 to 4.74 for the cross machine direction. The roughness range of the wheat straw art paper was 2909 ml to 2963 ml for the top side and 2880 ml to 2954 ml for the bottom side of the paper. The ISO brightness and opacity of the yellowish wheat straw art paper was at 22.74% and 100.00%, The ISO color value was for the L*, a*, b* Hunter color scale 69.46%, 02.02, and 15.47 respectively. The finished art paper product met the expectations by the artists. The paper was used for several encaustic art studio projects.