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Joshua-Mozes — Tutorial aging paper
Published: 2012-06-14 22:59:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 31693; Favourites: 404; Downloads: 157
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Description
A fairly easy and cheap method to age paper for creating an old book1-2. I use drawingpaper (I believe this is 200 grams paper). You can see the color difference from the new paper with the ones i already coloured.
3. You start with brewing some strong tea, dont be scroogy about the number of teabags, I used 4 teabags.
4. A large enough basin, tub or bucket to soak your paper
5. The tea must be as dark as possible (Resist your temptation for a cup of tea, this tea is your paint now!)
6. Soak the paper in the tea
EDIT: If the tea is still HOT, use gloves or pinchers of a kind! (chopsticks would do the trick) Don't burn your fingers...
7. Dry it on a drying-rack or on a flat surface. You can speed up the proces with help of a hairdryer.
8-9. After drying the paper looks like this and you could use it already, but the aim is for even darker paper.
10. Now we are using coffee to darken the paper even more.
11-12 Let it dry, and be amazed by the fact the paper really looks OLD...
13. Now you can paint, write, and/or print you texts. And make your ancient book.
In a later stage I also wil submit a bookbinding tutorial. Till then...
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Comments: 41
Looks amazing. May I ask where did you get the drying rack?
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The name of the store is Blokker. But I've never heard of it have stores in America...
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Did you resoak the paper in coffee after drying it the first time?
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Yes. You can repeat it more then once.
The darker the paper, the 'older' it looks. You can experiment with small strips of paper- first one only tea, second tea and coffee, third tea and repeated coffee etc
Now you can compared and decide which one look old enough. Have Fun
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Just what I've been looking for! Fantastic tutorial!
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So THAT'S how one re-prints the Necronomicon...
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Yesssss!
But my goal is as equaly ambitious. I intend to recreate "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulte(n)" written by Friedrich Wilhelm von Junz.
First try [link]
I have to find time to contiue this gianormus undertaking
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I bet it smells wonderful too!
Thank you so much for this tutorial.
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Yes, everytime you pick up the paper/book, you feel the urge to have a cup of coffee
In time the smell will go away (more or less)
And thank your kind words
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Do you use the same soaking method with the coffee as with the tea?
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yes, but you can also use a sponse to create an irregular pattern of stains...
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This is absolutely awesome, can't wait to try it out
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You're totally right! ^^
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the only problem I see is when you're observing a really old book that has this kind of colouring, you will notice groups of pages with the same curves and curls due to moisture damage and uniform discolouration due to sun exposure or spilled liquid, tattered edges from a child's teeth, etc.
When you stack these pages they all go their own way.
Of course you cannot dry them stacked and pressed- or could you? Perhaps with layers of muslin between each page you could press them. Or you might mist them again once dry and coloured the way you want so you can shape them using a large barrel curling iron or a smooth stone... This way even the selective damage becomes an art project in itself...
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Thanks for the input.
It is almost impossible to color the pages in the exact way as the page before it. This way of colouring gives only the 'illusion' of old bookpages. The layers of muslin you describe could help. Haven't tried that.
And to speed up the drying process you could use a hairdryer, instead of the dryingrack I used.
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Thank you for sharing, looks a bit messy for my current space but I'll keep it in mind for the future. ^^
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Messy... Oh, yes, especially the coffee-part. Better use some cover, cloth, or old newspaper under the rack.
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Yeah, and I might have to do it in the tub.
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Thanj you and have fun 
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Thanj=Thank*
damn this keyboard!
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It's great butthe images alone doesn't tell me what's going on and the description below made it hard to catch on.
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Thanks for the input. In a new version I will add the text in the photo's
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this looks really cool! I want to try this one day ^^
is the tea/coffee still hot when you soak the paper?
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...Oh, yes, maybe I should have warned about that.
On a flat surface its cools down fairly quickly, but to be on the safe side: use gloves or a pincher of a kind.
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okay, thank you! C:
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