You know how sometimes you have to make a neutral paper, so you can print a book? (I’m hoping I can get half of the sheets I need for my next book out of this. I don’t know what I’m going to use for the other half yet. If I can steal Julia’s leftover pulp, I know what I’m using for the covers, though…)

The picture is deceptively boring. It’s not nearly that plain in reality.

It will be very interesting indeed to see how it comes out texturally — half of the pulp is the same rag I used for the watermarked sheets the other day, with a much shorter beat.

Also, the first half of the rag included both pink and brown. What color did it turn? You got it: pure white. (That’s actually why I blended the two; it was too bright of a white, so I toned it down with the stuff I knew would be at least a little grey.)

I mean, not really; it’s actually pretty great.

Julia took the last two days to make some truly excellent paper. And, of course, she’s much better at sheet formation than me.

Oh well. I wish I had some rag this color; it would be perfect for my next book project.

So gloriously, ridiculously blue.

It almost makes up for the fact that I had to take a couple of days off from papermaking. (Tomorrow I intend to go in and prep a nice neutral rag so I’ll have a book-appropriate paper.)

So very blue. An even more ridiculous shade than I expected, in pulp. The finished sheets should be excellent.

I could criticize the formation — it’s still pretty thready, and I was having a tiny bit of trouble getting even distribution. Whatever. It will be lovely anyway.

Two pounds of cotton: shredded mostly blue rag and one of the last batches of the purple stuff from a couple of years ago with a little leftover pink from the previous batch.

It was a collaborative effort, too: my studiomate J wandered over and helped with the second post. It was a good time, and she made a nice stack of very thin sheets.

I definitely need to get a different camera for this project. My phone died on Friday, and the backup I’m using is (as you can see) terrible (it’s not great as a phone, either). It may be time to start actually using a camera.

Today’s pulp is ridiculous.

Seriously.

I mean, not that you can tell from this photo. But it is awesome. AWESOME AND PINK. So pink. (Mostly linen, as I said, so the texture is actually magnificent.)

Almost entirely linen, a little overbeaten, and this photo doesn’t do it justice at all. It’s gloriously minty green until you look at it closely, and then there are blue threads … no, seriously, it’s great.

I really need to start using a camera with a decent color sensor.

Today’s paper was pink. So pink. About half linen, half cotton, a long beat and a long time clearing, so it should be crisp and not too knotty. We’ll see.