Plant cellulose fibers best suited for paper formation are extracted from the inner bark (sclerenchyma tissues) of certain woody plants, but decent paper can be made from herbaceous stalks (Garlic Mustard), vine xylem (English Ivy) and monocot leaves and sprouts (bamboo shoots and sheaths).

With minimal preparation, hebaceous stalks and monocot leaves may be cooked in a stainless steel pot for a few hours in alkaline solutions, such as wood-ash lye (potassium hydroxide) or sodium carbondate (washing soda). To conserve energy, we normally cook for an hour and wrap the lidded pot in two large wool blankets for overnight steeping.

Woody stems may require steaming to loosen the bark so it strips easily off the woody stem. Dark outer bark is scraped off the strips to reveal supple bast fibers, which may be dried for storage or cooked right away in alkali.

Ivy vines are steamed and stripped of their thin bark to expose woody xylem, which is dried, shredded and cooked in alkali.

Cooking releases cellulose from its binder, lignin, which appears in the cooking solution with other broken-down compounds as a highly pigmented "black liquor," which can be saved for making inks.

Cellulose fibers are thoroughly washed, before being beaten with bats or cycled through a Hollander beater for pulping.

Sheets are formed with a mould and deckle drawn through a pulp vat. The wet sheets are couched into posts before being placed under a 20-ton shop press, which slowly squeezes out much of the water.

Sheets are dried on either plywood, glass or in a press drier with fans.

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Three techniques produce workable inks for painting, drawing and printmaking.

Black-liquor inks are made by cooking plant tissues in alkaline solutions. Black liquor is poured through a screen to remove solids, boiled to reduce volume and increase viscosity, and neutralized with white vinegar (acetic acid) while monitoring pH.

Potassium hydroxide (wood-ash lye) will react with vinegar to produce potassium acetate; sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate will react with vinegar to yield sodium acetate. Both acetates are relatively harmless and are sometimes used as food additives. Both compounds can act as an acid buffer.

The viscous solution is mixed with gum arabic (a common watercolor binder) and a small amount of glycerin (a hygroscopic agent that prevents inks from drying too quickly on the printing block).

Ethanol-extract inks are achieved by soaking raw plant tissues in ethyl alcohol. Some or all of the alcohol is allowed to evaporate, concentrating the pigments.

Carbon-black inks employ soot from burned woody weeds, which is combined with water, gum arabic and glycerin.

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Bamboo culms are a reliable source for drawing pens.

• A pocket knife cuts the bamboo stalk on a long, straight angle.
• The knife point creates a split down the center of the longest part of the cut.
• The pen is sharpened to a point centered on the split.

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Wiry fibers found in the bark of Porcelainberry and Multiflora Rose can be bundled and glued into the ends of bamboo culms to create crude but useful brushes. Early spring shoots and vines yield the finest brush fibers.

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Woodblock prints are best made with Norway Maple wood, which reveals very little woodgrain in the print. Bradford Pear is another tight-grained weed wood, and probably the best for hand carving. White Mulberry (right) is hard and grainy, but warps less than maple when using water-based inks.

Blocks are prepared on site and are cut either by hand or with a CNC router.

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Relief carvings in weed wood are cut using a CNC router and a rotary carving tool. Finished pieces are stained with weed inks.

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Tough, flexible fibers from the bast of Asiatic Bittersweet are cooked in alkali, washed, dried, hackled, carded and spun into string used to hang scrolls or bind brush fibers. The pinkish fiber (right) could potentially be used for fabric.

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