When you get to handle paper everyday, you really can tell when a sheet
has been made by loving hands. The personal touch is retained over time
and miles. One of Wet Paint’s favorite handmade paper mills is
the Larroque Mill in France. Their papers include surfaces
for watercolor, printmaking and particularly, soft
pastels. The Bergerac and Mouchete collections offer a wide range of colors. The Colombe papers are heavy
(350 grams) with a rough surface and is available in a range of colors
including a deep, rich black. More like a handmade board, it is delicate
and rugged at the same time.
LaPapeterie St. Armand makes paper in Montreal, Canada.
Surfaces are created for watercolor, drawing and printmaking,
and a special range for calligraphy. Their colors are
earthy. A recent new collection of papers called Umbrella includes an
embossed grid over the surface. Available in a range of colors, the
green is a beautiful deep green-gray which would be a beautiful starting
point for an abstract pastel drawing.
Twinrocker is a mill located in Indiana. Their papers
have a subtle color range. Kathryn and Howard
Clark at Twinrocker can create a beautiful sheet of simply
white paper. The papers are often made in unique sizes, so for example,
you can have a 5x14 sheet with a true deckle on all four sides. To further
embellish such a sheet, they make a “feather deckle.” This
is an exaggerated, irregularly sculpted edge. A small landscape drawn
or painted on a sheet like this would look as if it were floating in
the clouds.
As Verra, Wet Paint’s personal
paper diva says, “Larroque, St. Armand and Twinrocker.
They simply make sheets of paper. No fancy gimmicks. No wild inclusions.
Just beauty to the touch and to the eye.”
