Crushed

There were many different ways that Japanese paper was treated or worked to adapt it for a variety of purposes. One of these was the way of crushing mulberry papers to give what is now know as "crepe"paper. This was very popular for both woodblock prints and childrens books. In an earlier post we mentioned the books- chirimenbon.(November 2012)

The technique for crushing the paper seems to have involved a machine like the one below.

  

Sheets of paper were first dampened and interleaved with textured sheets of paper to introduce the creasing. These were wrapped vertically around the post before being crushed down the rod. The sheets would be removed, and smoothed out before being repositioned and the process repeated.

A simplified way of crushing paper which was traditionally used to wrap scrolls is detailed below (useful tip in the season of gift giving !)

Wrap a thin sheet of paper tightly around a wooden ruler

Push the paper firmly down the ruler starting at the bottom

Smooth out the finished sheet........

As we begin the Year of the Sheep we would like to wish everyone a peaceful and rewarding 2015