Papermaking

Papermaking is back breaking labor!
After about a year of saving all the little tiny scraps of cotton paper I couldn't use for any thing else, I finally cut them all down into tiny pieces. Last night I put them all in water to soak overnight. Today I started blending the bits up, and it made horrible loud noises as it first chomped into them. You get a lot of pulp from rives BFK heavyweight paper. It's pretty compact I guess.

Anyway after blending a few blenders full I started making paper sheet by dipping a screen and deckle into the water and carefully lifting up and gently shaking it back and forth. After that I turned it face down on some pellon and pressed it down hard, then pulled the screen off. This is all much harder than it seems. I made about nine sheets. The wind was kicking up so leaving them to dry in the sun was impossible and I only have a little bit of pellon so unless the paper dries quickly in the sun, I'm at a standstill.

Also as I mentioned it's back breaking labor.

So my nine sheets are okay. They're not nearly as nice as other professional handmade paper. Probably due to my crappy dipping skills to make the sheet, and of course I don't have a hydraulic press to squish them completely flat. So they're kind of rough and have strong marks from the screen.

I tried rolling one through the etching press to see what happens. Nothing good! that's what happens. So it was basically like rolling a pie crust, it pushes and stretches the paper, which just pulls apart. I next tried a rolling pin which worked a bit better. It just flattened the screen texture a bit. After that I put then in blotters so they are mostly flat. Except they're not quite dry and I'm out of dry blotters. So well. It is what it is.

I'm wondering if they will be strong enough to print on!? I'm thinking letterpress is more likely than inkjet but I've heard some remarkable things that get sent through just fine.

A few weeks ago we made some Abaca and Iris paper. I think I liked that better as the rough texture goes nicely with the substance it's made of. Whereas with the cotton, I have expectations of smooth perfect sheets.

I really like the idea of being able to save all those scraps of expensive printmaking paper and recycle them into new paper. I'm just not sure it's physically practical for me.

Honestly I kind of wish I'd just done paper marbling today instead. I letterpress printed a cut of a ship I have in silver ink over some marbled paper the other day and it was very pleasing! (images to follow).