Caring for watercolour brushes
Rinse, reshape and dry flat: how to keep a good brush pointed for years.
How handmade paper is made in Sanganer
Cotton rag, water and a wooden frame: a morning at one of the units that supplies us.
Sanganer, south of Jaipur, has made paper by hand for centuries. The units we buy from start with cotton rags, mostly offcuts from garment workshops, which are sorted, cut and beaten in water until they become a soft pulp.
The papermaker dips a fine mesh frame, called a mould, into a vat of pulp and lifts it out level, shaking it gently so the fibres lock together. The wet sheet is turned onto felt, pressed to remove water and hung to dry on lines across the roof.
Once dry, sheets are sized so ink does not spread, then pressed again between metal plates for smoothness. Deckled edges are left on, which is why no two sheets are exactly alike.
One papermaker can form a few hundred sheets a day. The paper is strong, takes fountain-pen ink well and lasts for generations. Each notebook label names the unit it came from.
