The handmade papers that shape my printmaking practice

There's a moment when you pull a print off the press and feel the paper before you see the image — the way it gives slightly under the roller, the way the fibres grab the ink, the ragged edge that reminds you the sheet was made by hand. Handmade paper has been a quiet obsession of mine for years, ever since I started working with intaglio in the darkroom-adjacent world of the print studio. The choice of stock shapes everything that follows: the line quality, the depth of black, the way a plate sits on the bed. I've tried dozens of sheets over the years, and a handful have become staples in my New Orleans studio.

Writing from a different hemisphere, I know plenty of Australian printmakers who care just as fiercely about their handmade printmaking paper. The Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne has long championed the careful selection of materials, and many of us trade notes about which sheets hold up to repeated editions. The trade-offs down here can be different too — coastal humidity in Sydney, the dry heat of a Perth summer, the unpredictable arvo thunderstorms of a Brisbane wet season all change how a paper behaves. What follows is a working list of the handmade papers I reach for again and again, and the reasons they earn their place on my drying rack.

What I look for in a sheet

Every paper has its own personality, but I weigh a few constants before I commit to a press run. The first is how the sheet accepts ink. A heavily sized cotton paper will hold a fine etched line crisply, while a softer mulberry sheet will soften that same line into something atmospheric and diffused. For photogravure and wet collodion work, I want just enough sizing to keep the ink from feathering but not so much that the sheet feels waxy under the roller.

The second is durability. Handmade papers are tougher than they look, especially the longer-fibre Eastern sheets, but they still need to survive a soak, a press cycle, and a flatten. I test every new paper with a small edition before I trust it for a serious run. Weight matters too — I tend to work between 200 and 350 gsm for relief and most intaglio, dropping lighter for chine collé and going heavier for hand-burnished monotypes.

Finally, I think about the deckle. The ragged edges of a handmade sheet aren't decoration — they tell you the paper was formed on a mould, not cut from a roll. For some of my installation pieces, that edge is the whole point. The deckle says: this object came from a vat, from a person, from somewhere.

European cotton rag sheets

When I need a sheet that will hold an etched line like nobody's business, I reach for a mould-made cotton rag from one of the European mills. Cotton rag papers take deep blacks, dampen evenly, and stand up to repeated soakings. The deckle is usually clean, the surface has a subtle tooth that grabs aquatint beautifully, and the sheets feel substantial in the hand.

I print on these when the image demands precision: tight registration, fine cross-hatching, the kind of work where every slip of the burin needs to land exactly where I aimed. They're forgiving of the small mistakes that happen on a long edition too, because the cotton fibre has memory and will return to flat after pressing.

The trade-off is that these sheets can feel almost too polished for some projects. When I want a print to look weathered, raw, or archaeological, a perfectly uniform rag sheet fights against the mood of the image. That's when I start thinking about something with a bit more character.

Japanese fibres: kozo, mitsumata, gampi

The Japanese paper tradition is its own universe, and I've only scratched the surface of it. The three classic fibres — kozo (paper mulberry), mitsumata, and gampi — each behave differently. Kozo is long, strong, and slightly springy; it makes a sheet that can be crumpled and unfolded and still hold its form. Mitsumata is softer, warmer in tone, and has a refined surface that prints delicate tones beautifully. Gampi is almost waxy, with a luminous sheen and a crisp hand that resists ink penetration.

For chine collé I lean on kozo almost exclusively. Its long fibres laminate to a heavier backing sheet without tearing, and the translucency lets the underlying paper show through. For monotype and hand-rubbed work, I love mitsumata — it has just enough tooth to pull pigment off a plate without grabbing too aggressively. And for one-off impressions where I want a luminous quality, a thin gampi sheet can do something no cotton rag can.

Most of these sheets come through specialist suppliers, and they aren't cheap. But because they're so strong in relation to their weight, I can use thin sheets that look substantial on the wall. A kozo laminate at 40 gsm looks richer than a 300 gsm cotton when it's framed.

Indian and Nepali handmade sheets

The South Asian paper tradition often gets overlooked by Western printmakers, which is a shame, because the sheets coming out of small mills in Nepal and India are extraordinary. Many are made from lokta fibre, a Daphne shrub that regrows after cutting, which makes the supply surprisingly sustainable. The sheets are typically soft, slightly fuzzy, and have a wonderful warmth in tone.

I use these papers when I want an image to feel rooted, to feel of the earth rather than of the studio. The texture is more pronounced than Japanese papers, and the ink sits on the surface a little differently — slightly more matte, with a softer black. For hand-pulled editions with a folk or vernacular feeling, nothing beats them.

The deckles on these sheets can be quite irregular, which I love. Some of my favourite prints have come off the press with a curl along one edge that no machine-made paper could imitate. If you haven't tried them, I'd suggest a sample pack first. The weights and qualities vary dramatically from one mill to the next.

Caring for paper in a humid climate

Paper is hygroscopic, which is a polite way of saying it drinks in the air around it. In New Orleans I deal with long humid summers, but the challenges translate across the Pacific. Printmakers I know in Brisbane tell me about summer storms that swell sheets overnight, and friends in coastal Victoria watch their flat files buckle each February.

My rule of thumb is to store paper flat, in a stable room, away from exterior walls. If I'm running an edition through summer, I bring the next day's sheets into the studio the night before so they can acclimate to the press room, not the storeroom. I keep a small dehumidifier running in the paper closet year-round, set to around 50 per cent — high enough to keep the sheets from going brittle, low enough to discourage mould.

For finished prints, I use acid-free interleaving and avoid anything with adhesive touching the surface. If a print has been soaked, I flatten it between blotters under gentle weight for at least a week, longer for very thick or very absorbent sheets. It's not glamorous work, but it's the difference between a print that ages well and one that cockles and stains within a year.