Sumi Ink and Washi Paper — The Materials Behind the Work

There is something that happens when Sumi ink meets Washi paper for the first time. The ink spreads, resists, settles. The paper breathes. It is not a surface you paint on — it is a surface you paint with.

I have worked with these materials for more than a decade, and they still surprise me.

Sumi Ink
Sumi ink is made from compressed soot — traditionally from pine or rapeseed oil — bound with hide glue and formed into solid sticks. To use it, you grind the stick slowly against a stone with water, watching the ink deepen with each stroke. The process itself is meditative. It asks you to slow down before you have even touched the brush to paper.

The tone of Sumi ink is unlike anything manufactured. It carries depth — not just black, but blue-black, grey-black, the particular darkness of something ancient. Diluted, it becomes a wash of infinite subtlety. Concentrated, it is absolute.

I use both — sometimes within the same painting.

Washi Paper
Washi (和紙) is handmade Japanese paper, crafted from the long fibers of mulberry, gampi and other plants. It has been made in Japan for over a thousand years, and it feels like it.

Washi is simultaneously delicate and strong. It tears differently than Western paper — along the grain of its fibers rather than cleanly across. Under a brush loaded with ink, it absorbs and resists in equal measure. The texture is never perfectly even, and that unevenness is part of what makes each painting unique.

No two sheets of Washi are identical. No two paintings on Washi can ever be identical.
That is the point.

Why These Materials
I could work with smoother paper, more predictable surfaces, more controllable inks. But control is not what I am after.

Sumi ink and Washi paper belong to a tradition of mark-making that values the unexpected stroke, the irregular edge, the moment when the brush does something you did not plan. They are wabi-sabi materials — imperfect, natural, alive.

When a painting leaves the studio, it carries the memory of that particular day, that particular light, that particular moment when ink met paper and something happened.

Each original work is painted on handmade Washi paper with Sumi ink, Uruachi mounted and shipped from Stockholm — Shop Original Artwork