Grass Paper Experiments

This week I made a new version of handmade paper from grass.

The pale green paper on the left used in my 2023-24 book, Human Nature, is made from scrap paper, grass, leaves and tree bark.

The darker green paper on the right used in my 2024 book, Macroscopic - Microscopic, is made from scrap pieces of the pale paper with grass and Konnyaku starch.

The pale paper feels like an egg-box texture, while the darker paper is crinkly, the starch is noticeable.

The new recipe is approximately:

• 400 g glass cuttings

• 3 Litres of water

• A4 size worth of handmade paper scrap

• 1 tbsp

The paper is more transparent than the last experiment, which is fitting to their function as covers. The first grass paper covers a thicker, Hahnemuhle paper based book, while the second experiment covers a thin, Ino Shi paper based book.

Due to the thickness of each paper, the first experiment took over three days to dry, while the second was dry by the next morning.

The scraps of handmade paper did result in areas of white which I would have preferred to avoid. They were less obvious before the paper dried.