#papermaking

"Ochre Ghost"

9.5"x15"

Handmade paper collage, acrylic, charcoal, conté crayon on reclaimed wood

Flocks

Nepalese-style sheet experiments. Iowa kozo fiber.

(Also no worries if you don't have the spoons to answer, I always planned on doing my own research before starting and am still going to do that at some point regardless if I decide to actually try or not.)

Quick answer (might investigate more later if the curse lets me): it's going to depend partially on what you use as your base paper and what you're planning to use it for. My background is bookbinding and conservation, where papers need to meet pretty specific quality requirements bc they're used in ways that put them under strain (folding, glueing, being folded and frequently handled, often being the failure point of a binding or repair). Paper that's being used to draw with dry media or as an art object won't be subjected to that kind of stress, so it doesn't matter as much if it's fragile. Things to consider:

Thin sheets of paper will exacerbate the problems; a really thin sheet of blender-made paper might just not be usable, but if you pull chunkier sheets they'll hold up better

Using better-quality paper to begin with will get you a better-quality product. If you have any offcuts of watercolor or printmaking paper or good sketchbook paper, it will work best. Since you mentioned using up junk mail, know that it's probably going to make especially weak paper, though if you use a mixture of papers you can offset that somewhat. If you care about longevity, stay away from newsprint because it's acidic.

Even weak paper usually won't fall apart from basic handling, but it could be very brittle (cracking if you fold it) and not have much abrasion resistance (ripping up if you try to erase pencil lines), so bear that in mind when you're deciding what to do with it. It's also likely to be very fragile when wet.

You can draw or write with dry media on almost any paper, but if you want to use ink you might want to look into sizing. Even good-quality handmade paper is very absorbent and usually needs to be treated with a sizing agent to keep the ink from feathering out. The most common is gelatin, but I'm sure there are others.

The surface might also be very rough, making a pen/brush skip around. Paper can be burnished, which is done industrially with hot rollers and you can do yourself with a bone folder. It's pretty labor-intensive though

You can take advantage of the thickness and texture by making art paper—add tea or dried plants or glitter or little scraps of unpulped paper to your vat! Then the use of the paper is Being Cool so you don't have to worry about what else you can do with it

Also look into pulp painting! It's a technique where you actually *want* overprocessed fiber because you can use it to paint or stencil designs on other pieces of paper that have been couched and pressed but not dried yet. It was one of my favorite techniques to play around with when I was doing papermaking!

Now imagine i was smart and wrote something cool on the paper before trapping it inside there and parts of the words were kinda visible in, like, bright red or yellow paint.