The beauty and personality of hand-made paper soon will entice the printmaker who wishes to experiment with diverse substrate upon which to make an inky mess (we call that making a print). Here are some notes on how to work with hand-made paper, which brings much beauty and headaches, not necessarily in that order, to any printmaker's studio.

Topics:

• Why use hand-made paper?
• Sizing, internal, added, adding yourself, how to tell
• Dyes, oh heavens, no, how to test for permanency of color
• Acidity
• Those pesky/beautiful inclusions
• Dampening
• Handling
• Embossing
• Necessary additives to prevent mush and other disasters
• Tearing for that fake-natural deckled edge

Why use hand-made paper?

Well, just look at it! It's beautiful for one thing, but much more than that, for the woodcut printmaker hand made paper:

<>Adds an instant interesting background to simple designs
<>Gives character to prints
<>Increases the variety of colors of available printmaking paper
<>Emphasizes the substrate without which we would not be printmakers
<>Introduces inclusions and variation within the paper tones again to add interest to our prints
<>Adds the always interesting and often indispensable deckle edge

Whatever the reason, printmakers through history have sought and used hand-made paper as a way to add a different dimension to works on paper.

Sizing, internal, added, adding yourself, how to tell

Sizing refers to a gelatin like substance of various natures that is added to paper in order to retard absorbency. In unsized paper, such as most hand-made papers, blotters, and water-leaf papers, a drop of ink or watercolor paint will spread unchecked along the tangled fibers. Sized paper is coated with a gelatin substance, can be actual natural gelatin or any form of synthetic substances, methyl cellulose being one of the most popular. Akin to spraying hair spray on hair, sizing "glues" the fibers together and forms a more integrated surface, preventing ink from spreading wildly amongst the loose hairs.

Internal sizing is added to the paper while in the pulp stage, and is thus harder to spot. Watercolor papers are internally sized, as are all typing papers and writing papers. External sizing or added sizing is brushed or poured or dipped on the paper after the sheet is formed and dried or nearly dried. Most Japanese papers are externally sized on one side only.

The following picture is a close up of the easiest way to tell sized from unsized paper, this particular paper is Okawara. The left picture is the unsized side, easily spotted by the swirl of fibers and the "matted hair" appearance. The right picture is the sized side of the paper, which looks and feels smooth to the touch and is shinier rather than matte.

Other ways to tell if a paper is sized or not:
-Look for a watermark by holding paper up to a light source (window), waterleaf paper is usually not sized
-Hold your tongue to the paper, sized paper sticks to the tongue...yum
-Drop a single drop of liquid ink or watercolor unto the paper, unsized paper will allow the ink to spread unevenly. Sized paper will "hold" the drop in a drop-like circle shape.
-Look at and feel the paper carefully, sized paper usually has a sheen or a hard surface look and feel to it. Unsized paper is very matte and the fibers are clearly visible and touchable.

Applying sizing to paper is not terribly tough and sizing is easily obtained. There are also many recipes for natural sizing materials. I personally like the powdered sizing from Daniel Smith Art Supplies pictured below, or Methyl Cellulose. Both come in powder form and have to be mixed and applied following the proportions on the package. The easiest way to size paper is either to tub size it by dipping in a tub full of sizing mix and hanging, or applying the sizing to a side of the sheet with either a brush, sponge roller, or a wall paper smoothing brush (this last tip by Bea Gold!).

Color Permanency

Nobody wants their paper fading away after a few exposures to indirect light. Even indoor lighting can fade hand-made paper over time if the colors used in the paper come from unknown dyes or pigments. If you buy all your hand-made paper from Twinrocker, the problem is easy to fix: just ask them about the lightfastness (non-fading properties) of their paper.

There is really no way to tell how much a hand-made paper will fade over time just by looking at it. However there is what I have come to call the "driveway test" for a fairly quick way to tell whether your paper will last the test of time. Keep in mind all paper and artwork will fade over time, especially when exposed to standard lighting. That's why museums control the light environment of precious works of art.

Driveway test explained
As you might guess, this is a low-tech, sun-powered method of testing paper, matboard, posters of Elvis...
First thing you need is a driveway or, lacking such Western luxury, a flat windless slab of sunny real estate slightly larger than your paper. A rooftop will do, as will a board stuck out a window, the hood of a car, a picnic blanket in your nearest park (you could even integrate a picnic with the fade-test, but I won't include instructions for that here).

Second thing is a scrap of precious paper to be tested and a blockout device: a scrap of matboard, board, or anything that will completely shield half the scrap of precious paper from the sun.

The rest is fairly simple, just lay your precious paper on the chosen driveway, covering half with your blockout device. Stir gently...no, wait, that's another recipe. Simply let the sunshine do its work for about five hours or more. In winter, a whole day may be necessary; in summer in Las Vegas we can fade cheap paper in an hour. If it's windy you might want to tape everything together with masking tape so that your experiment doesn't end up in someone else's rooftop.

Here are the results of the test on a mango colored silk paper. I got this paper on eBay and fell in love with the beautiful rich color but wanted to make sure that it would withstand the test of time. Worked like a charm! I also tested a piece of black matboard as a "control" subject; over the course of a day the matboard faded about 5 shades while the mango paper stayed true.