Step-by-Step Techniques for Handmade Paper Sheets

How-To Guides

Papermaking is a rewarding and sustainable process that allows you to transform recycled materials into beautiful, handcrafted sheets. This guide will take you through each stage from preparing and pulping the furnish, to forming, pressing and drying your paper. You can experiment with adding fibres, petals, or pigments to create unique textures and colours, perfect for use in printmaking, collage, or mixed media artwork.

Step by step - Let's Create

Tear the furnish into small squares and soak in water for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. Aquapel Size can be added at this stage at a ratio of 20ml per litre of water. Put batches of the furnish into a blender and top up to between half and two thirds full with water. Blend pulp until smooth, do not over process it, or the fibres will become too short and the finished paper will be flimsy. Strain the pulp through a sieve and set aside. Repeat this process until all of the furnish has been pulped.

Tip: Adding Aquapel Size to the water when soaking will result in a stronger paper and ensures the paper becomes more resistant to water-based mediums. The ratio of this should be approx. 98% water and 2% Aquapel

Fill a vat with water, and deposit a couple of handfuls of pulp into the mix. Agitate the water to disperse the pulp. The amount of the pulp in the water will determine the thickness of the sheet of paper; ideally, the mix should be roughly 0.5% pulp by volume. You can add fibres, petals or coloured pigments at this stage to add interest to your paper.

Hold the paper making frame with the mesh side uppermost and position the deckle (unmeshed frame) on top of the mesh. Hold the frame and deckle between two hands vertically over the vat. Then, in one continuous movement, lower the frame into the vat, move it to a horizontal position underneath the water, and, keeping the frame and deckle level, pull them straight up out of the liquid. The water will drain through the mesh, leaving behind a film of paper pulp.

Prepare a couching mound by layering up newspaper into a tray. Fold 4 ply of newsprint into small, medium and large rectangles, and layer them on top of each other, starting with the smallest first. The newspaper should form a gentle mound. Wet the entire structure, and lay the first couching cloth (wet) on top of it.

Take the deckle off the frame, and sponge off excess water from the underside of the mesh. Position the side of the frame at one edge of the couching mound, and with a smooth, firm action, rock the frame across the mound. The paper should transfer from the mesh onto the couching cloth. Put another piece of wet couching cloth over the finished sheet and continue paper making. You can layer up several sheets.

When you have finished making paper, cover the top with one last couching cloth. The stack is transferred to a press, and put under pressure to remove as much excess water as possible. After pressing, the sheets can be separated and laid out to dry, still attached to the couching cloth. Once the paper is completely dry, it can be removed from the couching cloth. If the paper needs to be completely flat it can be put under a heavy weight for a day or two, or pressed with an iron5.