Reviews
Part of Judging decorative paper: start by holding the sheet up to the light
Buying decorative paper supplies works better technique by technique, not by category
Buy for one technique, not for the category. Paste paper, marbling and suminagashi need different kits, and the medium decides the aftercare.
What to take away
- Buy for one technique, not for the category. Paste paper and marbling need almost nothing in common.
- No brands are named, because nothing was bought or compared for this article.
- Fiber and pulping method, not brand, decide whether a sheet survives being soaked.
- Ask what a sheet is sized with before you buy it, because sizing decides how it takes a bath.
Decide the technique before the shopping list
Paste paper needs flour or starch, pigment, a brush, and tools to take paste away again. Western marbling needs a thickened bath, a mordant, a rake or comb, and dispersed color. Suminagashi needs plain water, sumi ink and a surfactant. The overlap is a tray and paper.
Technique supply kits compared
Paste paper
- Base
- Flour or starch
- Color
- Pigment
- Tool
- Wide brush, combs
- Additive
- None
- Shared
- Tray, paper
Western marbling
- Base
- Thickened bath
- Color
- Dispersed color
- Tool
- Rake or comb
- Additive
- Mordant
- Shared
- Tray, paper
Suminagashi
- Base
- Plain water
- Color
- Sumi ink
- Tool
- Brushes
- Additive
- Surfactant
- Shared
- Tray, paper
Choose one and buy for it completely. Half-equipping two techniques is the most reliable way to succeed at neither, and it is what most starter kits encourage you to do.
The first purchase list, by technique
Buy first
- Paste paper
- Starch, pigment, wide brush, combs
- Marbling
- Size, alum, dispersant, rake
- Suminagashi
- Sumi ink, brushes, surfactant
- All three
- Paper, blotters, a rigid tray
Do not buy yet
- Paste paper
- Anything for a bath
- Marbling
- A second color set
- Suminagashi
- Thickened size
- All three
- Specialist tools
Paper is the item worth spending on in every row. A sheet that cockles or falls apart wet will make any technique look like a failure of skill.
First purchase list by technique
- Paste paperstarch, pigment, wide brush, combs
- Marblingsize, alum, dispersant, rake
- Suminagashisumi ink, brushes, surfactant
- All threepaper, blotters, rigid tray
- Do not buybath gear, second color set, thickened size, specialist tools
The fiber decides how a sheet behaves wet
Decorating is wet work. A sheet's survival depends on what it is made of, not what it costs.
The Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking exhibit on fiber and pulp describes the Fiber Identification Library assembled at the Institute of Paper Chemistry from around 1950. Researchers and paper companies use it to document pulping processes, with the samples held as comparison standards for microscopic examination.
You will not be doing microscopy. The point is that fiber source and pulping method are what a sheet's wet strength comes from, so ask the supplier what it is made of before you ask anything else.
Buy paper that was made to be worked wet
Sizing decides whether a sheet drinks the bath or sits on it. Timothy Barrett's essay for the University of Iowa on European papermaking techniques from 1300 to 1800 is the clearest account of what changed and when. It treats that period as the rise and slow decline of hand papermaking as a major industry.
It lists what transformed the craft after 1800: the papermaking machine, the universal acceptance of the Hollander beater, chlorine bleach, rosin and alum internal size, and the introduction of impure wood-pulp fibers as a substitute for rags.
Two of those matter at a tray. Internal rosin and alum sizing changes how a sheet accepts a mordant, and wood pulp changes its wet strength. Ask a supplier what the sheet is sized with, and buy a small quantity to test before you commit to a ream.
What to skip in the first year
Metal combs and rakes in multiple gauges, a dedicated marbling trough, artist-grade pigment sets, and any prepared kit. A homemade comb of pins in a strip of board works, and it teaches you what spacing does. The layout these purchases live in is in a small-space setup for decorative paper, and the cost frame is in pricing decorative paper supplies.
