Painting elephant hide

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Ah, what Roman has you doing I think is done with plain acrylic paint, not the MC/Acrylic mixture I was telling you about. THAT should give you a duo paper, as plain acrylic shouldn't bleed through so much. I'm just not sure about how that might affect the foldability of the paper.

[aces21]

Thanks, that's what I thought. Plain acrylic is quite thick right, so surely it'll either make the paper really difficult to fold, or else maybe flake off. That's why I'd assumed it was diluted. I guess I'll just give it a go with some scraps and see what happens.

[NickH]

I have folded the donkey and steer using elephant hide painted with one coat of acrylic (by brush) straight out of the tube. I couldn't get a perfectly even or streak free finish but in the end as only a small portion of the white side shows in the model it didn't matter - they turned out exactly as shown in the books photos. The acrylic didn't flake, crack, peel or affect shaping at all (I dry/wet folded). I doubt these models would stand up with backcoated unryu - painted elephant hide is now a permanent inclusion in my paper choices.

[aces21]

Great, thanks for the info Nick. Do you have any pictures of the finished models to share? I've test folded them out of 35cm kami and the models & folding sequences are fantastic as usual for Roman, but the models definitely deserve better paper. Just need to find my white acrylic paint now!

[WhisperPuffin]

I use acrylic paints watered down to taste. It makes the paper slightly springier in my experience, but no major effects.

Hint: A paint roller helps a LOT with evenness.

[shortloldude]

I didn't want to open a new thread, so I hope it is ok to post in this one since it is about painting paper. Recently I have started glueing tracing paper to foil and want to try to get some color into the tracing paper. Before I went off and bought paint and experimented a ton, I wanted to ask should I paint the tracing paper then glue it to the foil after it dried, or should I glue it to the foil first then paint it? Also, will combining acrylic paint with MC like FrumiousBandersnatch suggested for elephant hide and origamido have any effect on the thickness of the tracing paper or how well it can fold? I assume I should get acrylic paint, but should I get a different type or paint? I have never painted before and so I don't know how it affects the paper at all.

[Adam]

When I mixed Acrylic paint with MC and smeared it over my 25g/m² Mulberry (keep in mind that I probably did it incorrectly) it greatly increased the thickness of the paper and it became a lot less foldable. Furthermore, it was difficult to get rich (and evenly spread) colours.

I'm currently experimenting with pure pigments; I'll post my findings once I figure out how to do it correctly, but so far I haven't reached any satisfactory results; It's certainly a lot better than what I got using Acrylic paint.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I haven't experienced any meaningful changes in thickness when I paint and MC. As far as saturated colors go...you have two options: you can try acrylic pigments that are used to mix in with an acrylic base to make your own colors, which should come out more saturated, or you can stick to kami.
As far as when to add the pigment, I would tell you to experiment. I might also say that if you dye the tracing paper first, you will likely encounter two issues :
1: The tracing paper will be very difficult to remove from the glass/plexi.
2: The pigments may bleed when you go to glue the tracing paper onto the foil.

[shortloldude]

Thanks, I guess I will give it a shot then.

[PleatBox]

I know this is an old topic but when I mix acrylic paint with mc and brush it down on the paper the color does not stick at all I've added a lot of brown acrylic in my mc but the color still didn't stick in the paper..

any help??

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You may have to do it in layers with some papers. What is your base paper for this?

[PleatBox]

I use double tissue paper, I also paint it layer by layer but nothing much happens

[bethnor]

he's alive!

just so you know, frumious, i've tried your suggestion (diluting acrylic with mc), but it doesn't seem to work on tant. i think your technique mostly applies to the hand-made stuff.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You know, I don't think I've ever tried it on Tant... I feel like I've used it on tissue paper though. You may be right though...it may work best on hand-made paper.

and yes! I am alive

[bethnor]

the problem is that even tissue is such a heterogeneous term.

i particularly like spritz tissue that you buy at target, as the colors are very vibrant. however, the quality of the paper actually varies by sheet; many of their colors are relatively impermeable to mc, so you have to use a sandwich technique (put down one sheet, apply mc, then put another sheet over it, as opposed to piling two sheets and applying the mc and letting it soak through).

this may be pleatbox's problem, if his tissue paper is relatively impermeable to the mc, the color won't penetrate.