Make Paper With No Mucking About!
Type in ‘how to make paper’ online and you’ll get all kinds of long-winded complicated how-to articles involving hours of paper tearing, procrastinating over which kinds of paper to use, and other technical jargon involving equipment you either don’t have or will probably only use several times. But what if you just want to make paper with no mucking about? Well, there is a way; it might take a bit longer to dry than the experts would be happy with, but it’s much less messing about and the results are excellent.
1) Tear up a load of newspaper and leave it in a basin full of warm water to soak. The smaller the pieces, the quicker it’ll become soft and malleable.
2) When the fibers start to become slushy, that’s when to take it out. Leave it too long and you run the risk of the pieces becoming too small, and they won’t so easily knit together.
3) Drain the majority of the water out of the paper, until they are quite wet but not sopping; then take a flat surface—such as a cutting mat or something similarly smooth, as this will determine the smoothness of one side of your paper—and chuck the paper on in handfuls. Don’t be precious about it. Knead it as thin or thick as you like, until it’s relatively flat (Don’t make it too thin, though, otherwise it will fall apart when you peel it off).
4) Now you must wait. In a house with central heating the paper will dry in a week or so. If it’s sunny outside—and quite hot—then the paper will dry, however thick, in a matter of hours. I usually put my sheets on the shed roof in the morning, and by mid-afternoon they are dry as a bone.
5) Carefully and patiently peel your paper off. Marvel at the results and how smooth it is and get drawing!
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