Holy Weekend Willow Paper Redux

For the second year in a row my friend Carol and I gathered several months' worth of willow bark peelings and settled into the paper studio at BookWorks in West Asheville to make a supply of willow bark paper.  I kept careful notes of the procedure, and my journal pages are here:

This kind of project journal is one of my favorites because of its usefulness.  Carol and I were completely dependent on last year's journal notes to remember this willow paper process, and I started a new set of notes for this year, as we were making improvements and trying out a new recipe. 

 

This year we had the unexpected diversion of a termite swarm as we were getting ready to drain the pulp from the beater.

We also solved a mystery this year in that we realized last year's slow drying time was because we had forgotten to line up the cells in the triwall correctly in reference to the fan.

Below are samples of the two tones of paper that I made.  The one on the right has more abaca (manilla hemp) and cotton linter with the willow.  The one on the left is about half willow and half abaca/cotton linter.  Both have a lovely smooth finish with just enough tooth to be great for drawing on and using gouache and light watercolor.  The whole sheets are 11 x 14".