Three papers

Fine-art paper is chosen by touch. Over a summer of visits to three Tokyo labs — one in Kanda, one in Ginza, one in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa — we held tear samples up to the window, ran a thumb across the surfaces, and printed the same picture on each.

Canson's Edition Etching Rag is the classic: 310 grams of cotton with the medium-rough surface of an etching paper. Hahnemühle's German Etching is a little rougher and a little warmer, and the print sits slightly deeper in it, more like a drawing. Takeo's Kakita is the Japanese choice — smooth, warm white, made by the paper house that has supplied Japanese designers for a century. The artist spent his career among those designers; it felt right that one of the papers should come from there.

All three are pigment-printed, acid-free, and rated for well over a hundred years. The choice is about feeling, not longevity. If you cannot choose, we suggest German Etching for the botanicals and Kakita for the monochromes.