Tip #10 - Advice on Making Paper from Raw Plant Fibers

12 pieces of advice that I wish I knew when starting out as a beginner papermaker, with May Babcock, artist and founder of Paperslurry.com 👋. Coming to you weekly on Tuesdays.

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Hey it's May,

Papermakers have historically been adaptable—using what available fibers there have to make their papers.

You can make paper from paper (recycled papermaking).

You can make paper from cloth rags that are made of plant-based fibers (cotton, linen, hemp).

And, you can make paper from scratch with the plants themselves!

If you’re interested in papermaking from raw plant material, you should know that this approach is a bigger learning curve, compared to making paper from pre-processed pulps, cloth rags, or recycled papers.

It kinda opens up a whole other can of worms, and you can begin from a few different places:

Traditional Plant Fibers

If you’re interested in using tried-and-true plant fibers, I recommend learning from papermakers working with traditional methods and fibers. For example, the inner bark fiber of paper mulberry is one traditional fiber source in Japanese papermaking. In Nepal, hand papermakers make Lokta paper using fibers from the Daphne bush. Many of these traditional fibers are available to purchase, so you don’t have to worry about wandering around fields to find plants.

Foraging for Alternative Plant Fibers

If you’re more about experimentation with what you have local to you, then there are common weeds, and agricultural, kitchen, or garden waste plants you can start with. This is my approach as a place-based artist, whose studio work is alive with experimentation. I start by researching specific sites, gathering drawings and materials, and turn all of that into artwork through wide-ranging papermaking processes. I’ve used everything from industrial agri-waste to seaweed to daylily leaves, and displaced troublesome plants like garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed.

Horticultural Plant Fibers

Do you garden or farm? If so, growing your own plant fibers for papermaking is an avenue you could explore. Contemporary papermakers have explored flax, kenaf, and more plants that provide a bounty of fibers. These plants typically have a proven history of providing material for paper, fabrics or basketry—and so we know that they have a high yield of strong cellulose plant fibers. You can find several types available for purchase if you look.

Know your plant

It helps to have somewhat of a botanical understanding when you’re determining what plant to make paper from. This will help you select species that are more likely to make paper you want. Not only that, but it will also help you understand how different parts of the plant yield different paper qualities, how time of year of collection affects the outcome, and how the growing conditions (light, soil, water, habitat) affect the plant and its fiber.

Hold your horses, there's extra steps involved

Working from living plants means there’s additional steps in your process, compared to using rags, recycled papers, or pre-processed pulps. Plants have a lot of extra stuff in them beyond the cellulose fiber you need for paper. Depending on the plant and your process, you may be finding yourself steaming, chopping, peeling, boiling, and rinsing the plant, all before you even get to the clean fibers you need for making paper pulp.

See how there’s more involvement here?

Even though this all sounds like way more work than it’s worth, I think that papermaking from plants is the best kind of papermaking. Or at least, I personally find the most joy and satisfaction from working with living plants to turn them into paper art.

Yours,

May

PS. If you're not sure why you're getting this email or how you got on the Paperslurry email list, read this. Also here's the last pieces of advice if you missed it.​

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May Babcock
Founder at paperslurry.com​
Artist at maybabcock.com​
Self-proclaimed paper geek