Table of Contents
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Name: Elizabeth Branscum and Julia Tomasson
Date and Time:
Location: Apartment Kitchen
Subject: Lake Making, Standard Recipe
Materials: 1 large mason jar, 1 small mason jar, 1 bag of pre-ground cochineal, potash, alum, filtered water, dutch oven, chopsticks, pH test strips.
Lake making materials.
Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51257780427/in/album-72157719486209135/
Measure out 1000mL of filtered water using scale – this is NYC tap water filtered through a Brita faucet attachment filter.
Add bag of cochineal to the 1000mL jar. Beautiful arms of deep red color are leaching out of bag, creating a sort of tie-dye effect.
Add potash to the jar with cochineal and water. The result is a very deep purple solution, looks like beetroot.
Cochineal and potash in a jar of filtered water before heating in the bain-marie. image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51257780592/in/album-72157719486209135/)
Meanwhile, I have water warming in a dutch oven on the stove at low-medium heat. I add the jar with the cochineal and potash to the warming water in the dutch oven. The water level is maybe ¾ an inch below the level of colored liquid in the jar – I don’t want to bring it any higher for fear the smaller jar will be unstable.
Measure out 50 mL of filtered water using scale. Added alum to cold water in jar and stir – after a few stirs the grains are clearly sitting at the bottom, don’t seem to be dissolving at all. I decide to add the jar to the dutch oven, but it is too small and floats, so I hold it down with my hand and stir with a chopstick.
After about 5 min in the water, which is slowly heating to a simmer, the alum appears to be dissolved in the water. Remove, stir, set aside.
After about 8 minutes in the water, the colored cochineal/potash liquid seems to be steaming in the jar, though it’s a little hard to tell whether it’s that or the water, which is also steaming and bubbling very slightly. Decide to start my 15 min timer at 10:52. I have stirred the contents of the jar a couple of times, but I’m mostly just letting it sit in the simmering water. After 15 minutes have passed, I decide to wait five more.
Removed jar of cochineal/potash liquid at 11:12, remove bag of cochineal – there seems to be almost nothing left in the bag, just a few swirls of grainy looking purple liquid. The solution smells distinctive, perhaps like milk – I’m having a hard time placing it. Definitely earthy.
Cochineal and alum mixtures in the bain-marie. Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51258509736/in/album-72157719486209135/
Begin adding alum solution at 11:20am. I’m using one of the provided droppers to add alum, so add about 2.5mL at a time. The pH of the liquid straight out of the water bath looks to be about twelve – very dark purple.
To start, I add three droppers of alum solution, about 7mL, and stir. The liquid is getting lighter in color, and foaming very slightly, but there isn’t a ton of reaction going on. pH is still quite dark, 11 or 12.
Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51259253639/in/album-72157719486209135/
Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51259253624/in/album-72157719486209135/
Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51259548125/in/album-72157719486209135/
Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51258708478/in/album-72157719486209135/
I continue to add alum in increments of several droppers-full while stirring, and the solution gets increasingly foamy and brighter/lighter in color. By my seventh sixth pH test, things are starting to look a little lighter green, probably 9 or 10. I decide to start adding more alum at a time because the reaction has been pretty minimal so far, though as I’ve gone along I’ve started stirring more vigorously which does seem to both promote initial foaming and help dissipate it.
As the foam gets higher, I run into a problem – the foam seems to be more acidic than the solution itself, and when the foam is high, pH readings come out very acidic (see my test strips 9 and 12 in the photo). I begin waiting until the foam dies down a bit between readings.
A total of fourteen labeled pH strips, also showing the strips that were dipped in foam and so showed a lower pH early on. Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51257780387/in/album-72157719486209135/
With only a few dropperfuls of alum solution left in the jar, it’s got about an inch or so of very pink foam. The liquid itself looks thicker and brighter in color, like a very rich magenta. I add the last of the alum and stir for a few more minutes before leaving it to sit overnight – though even after just ten minutes or so, I can see the pigment settling, leaving about a quarter inch of yellowish clear liquid at the top beneath the foam [photo]
Name: Elizabeth Branscum
Date and Time:
Location: Apartment Kitchen
Subject: Filtering of Cochineal Lake
After being allowed to settle for almost 24 hours, the precipitate has formed a nice magenta layer on the bottom of the jar, about an inch and a half thick. There is also about an inch and a half of yellowish liquid above the precipitate, with a little bit of pink foam. It does have a distinct smell, but I can’t quite describe it – something like paint, or at least the inside of an art classroom.
The cochineal pigment after being allowed to settle for about 24 hours. Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51257780272/in/album-72157719486209135/
I set up filters on two different jars secured with rubber bands and begin pouring the liquid through the first filter. I’m shocked at how long it takes for the liquid to filter through the coffee filter – I initially ask my partner to film me as I filter but realize it’s going to take a long time. The liquid seems to move through just one drop at a time, at the place it’s most concentrated in the filter. I wonder if I’ve made it more difficult by making my first filter too shallow, so choose a jar with a narrower mouth for the second filter and reposition.
Filtering the cochineal. Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51259253009/in/album-72157719486209135/
As the liquid slowly filters, it comes out a very light pink on the other side. The liquid still draining inside the filter is a bright foamy pink. I continue to pour a small amount of liquid into each filter and then let it drain for about ten minutes before returning to pour more. After about an hour and a half, I have one jar and one cup filled with about two inches each of pale pink liquid, and a good amount of very wet, thick pigment in the filters themselves. Remove filters, rinse out jar and cup and repeat the process twice more, washing the pigment until the water runs clean. This takes me about five hours total – at 3:51 pm I have two filters full of wet pigment that has been washed. I leave it out to dry on top of the stove and turn the oven on very low for about an hour, but by the end it looks about as wet as it did when I started. I decide to just leave it on the kitchen counter uncovered until morning.
The filtered pigment before being left to dry overnight. Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51259627635/in/dateposted/
Name: (Also the name of your working partner)
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Name: (Also the name of your working partner)
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Image URL: | https://flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/49501852232/in/album-72157713010748872/ |
