Beauty of abaca lies in its translucent quality. It can look delicate or rough based on how it’s treated/used. Either way, it results in a paper that is very strong. Air dried abaca has a leathery texture to it. It works great for sculptures and book covers. 

These works were made with bleached and unbleached abaca beaten for 4hrs in the hollander beater and later air dried. The longer the fiber is beaten the higher the shrinkage. Abaca works great for embedding materials such as thread, wires, beads, etc between the sheets. It lets the embedded materials shine through without masking the details.