Paper. Paper is a thin sheet fibre material. It is a fundamental art material used in a wide variety of artistic practices. It serves as a primary surface for drawing, painting, and printmaking, offering diverse textures and weights that influence the final outcome of a work. Artists use paper for sketching, employing pencils, charcoal, or ink to create detailed illustrations or spontaneous drawings. In painting, different types of paper, such as watercolor paper or mixed media paper, are chosen based on their ability to handle various mediums. Watercolor paper, for instance, is designed to absorb water without warping, while mixed media paper allows for layering techniques with both wet and dry materials. Paper is also crucial in printmaking processes like etching, lithography, and screen printing, where its quality can affect the clarity and detail of the prints. Additionally, artists engage in paper crafting techniques, such as origami, collage, and papier-mâché, to create three-dimensional forms and textured artworks. Overall, paper’s versatility and wide range of properties make it an essential medium for artists across disciplines. Paper is produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines, some making reels 10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics, signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction processes. The papermaking process developed in east Asia, probably China, at least as early as 105 CE, by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest archaeological fragments of paper derive from the 2nd century BCE in China. The modern pulp and paper industry is global, with China leading its production and the United States following. The oldest known archaeological fragments of the immediate precursor to modern paper date to the 2nd century BCE in China.