Which paper suits your work? Pull five prints and build a personal paper reference

This exercise is drawn from the guides on paper choice: Japanese vs European Paper for Printmaking, Effects of Paper Choice in Printmaking, and Choosing the Right Ink and Paper. The guides explain the theory. This exercise makes you build your own reference. Paper is not neutral. It changes how ink sits, how tone opens, how the image feels in the hand. The only way to understand this for your own work is to test it yourself, on your own block, with your own ink.

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The exercise

Take a block you know well — something already carved, ideally with both fine lines and solid areas. Ink it once with your standard ink and pull five prints, each on a different paper: Print 1 — a thin Japanese paper (Hosho, Kozo, or Kitakata 30–90 gsm) Print 2 — a heavier Japanese paper if available (Awagami or similar, 80–100 gsm) Print 3 — a medium European cotton paper (Fabriano Rosaspina or Somerset, 180–220 gsm) Print 4 — a heavy European paper (220 gsm or above) Print 5 — any paper you have at home that you’ve wondered about Keep the inking identical across all five. Use the same pressure. Number the prints on the back before they dry.

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What to look for

Lay all five prints side by side. Look at the fine lines first: which paper holds the line cleanest? Which softens it? Look at the solid blacks: which paper gives the deepest, most velvety black? Where does the black feel flat? Look at the back of each print. Where is the embossing strongest? Is it adding something or distracting from the image? Finally — hold each print. The weight of the paper is part of how the work is received. The question: which paper is doing the most for this particular block?

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What the exercise builds

After running this test once, file the prints in a folder and label them. Over time, this becomes a personal paper reference — specific to your tools, your ink, your pressure. No guide can replace it. For the A1 hare prints in the Reflected Ground series, I use Fabriano Rosaspina 220 gsm. It holds the scale. Japanese papers at that size lose something — the image becomes too delicate for what it needs to say. But for smaller, intimate prints, I return to Japanese paper. The exercise taught me that the paper is not just a surface. It is part of the argument the print is making.