Painting elephant hide

[Wizmatt]

I recently got a copy of 'Origami Essence' by Roman Diaz. For some of his models he reccomends painting elephant hide paper, and wet folding the model. What paint should I use to colour the paper that will not run when wet or ruin the folding quality of the paper?

On a side note, does anyone know where to get elephant hide paper in colours such as red and green like the paper he has used for some of his models, all I can find is cream, brown, grey and white.

Thanks.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This is rare, but I actually have answers for BOTH questions. Last one first: Unfortunately, elephant hide is no longer made in anything but beige-tones and gray-tones. I know this, because I spoke with the folks at http://www.paperjade.com, one of two retailers who are importing the stuff directly from Zanders in Germany (the other is http://www.kimscrane.com). The folks at Paper Jade told me (because I knew I had seen red, and actually still have some bright orange) that Zanders told them that the only colors they make are those gray and beige ones.

As far as painting your elephant hide, here is what I do:

Note: This is what Michael Lafosse does to his Origamido paper, and what I was told to do when I asked them about it.

1: Take some methylcellulose and mix in a small amount of ACRYLIC paint. Just a very small amount will do: I would say perhaps a pea sized drop for every cup of methylcellulose, but there are no hard and fast rules. The more paint you add, the more saturated the final color will be.
2: Mix it in until it is a uniform shade, and then paint the mixture onto the paper the same way you would with Methylcellulose. (i.e., place the paper on a glass or plexiglass surface and paint the mixture on as you would if you were painting a wall, being careful to work the bubbles out gently) Once the paper is all painted, I generally use a rubber roller to take the excess paint off, as well as get the bubbles out, but this is not necessary.

3: Let dry, and then carefully peel up a corner and peel off of the glass.

Some things to consider when mixing the paint in: The color of the finished paper is going to be a bit less bright, and a bit more dull than the original paint/Methylcellulose mixture. Also, if you are going to mix colors together to make a different shade, or add black to make the color darker, the general rule for mixing paint is to start with the brighter color, and add very small bits of the darker color until it is the right shade. With paint, a small amount of dark color goes a long way, and once you put too much in, no amount of white paint added will fix it.

As for wet folding this when it is done, I have never had a problem with the paint running. If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me!

[Didée]

... start with the brighter color, and add very small bits of the darker color until it is the right shade. With paint, a small amount of dark color goes a long way, and once you put too much in, no amount of white paint added will fix it

Second that! One time I was going to tint some tissue with acrylic, and wanted to darken that bright pure red a little bit ... started with 5 drops of red, added 1 drop of black, the result was just black. Added 5 more drops of red - still almost black. Added 5 more drops of red (we're at 15:1 now!) - got a very very dark brown.
Lesson learned: be very careful with dark colors, particularly with black!

[TheRealChris]

Elefantenhaut is still available in a lot of different colours... at least here in Germany. Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Black,...
look here for instance
although Zanders isn't producing those colours anymore, there's surely a lot of coloured elefantenhaut available.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I stand corrected. If you have access to german paper shops, then the colored stuff indeed may be had.

[Wizmatt]

Thankyou very much everyone, some really useful information!

Sadly most of the colourful paper seems to be sold precut to A4 size, but there are some larger sheets available.

Does anyone know why Zanders are not producing these colours anymore?

[origamimasterjared]

Get yourself a spray bottle and some water-based acrylic ink. At least that's what Joseph Wu told me to do.

[Wizmatt]

Thanks.

Will I still be able to wetfold it without the ink running? Or does it depend on how much I wet it?

[origamimasterjared]

That is the question, isn't it… Neither of us wet-folds. And I haven't actually tried using ink yet (I fold thin paper). Should be fine though. Just let the ink all dry.

[origami_8]

Is the acrylic paint waterproof? If so wetfolding should be no problem as soon as the paint dried once.

Like said before the bright Elephant Hide colours are not continued any more.
It seems to me that it is also getting harder to get large sizes and different grammatures. No idea why Zanders decided that way, but I guess they have their reasons.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The acrylic paint is water proof-ish. I've never experienced problems wet folding it. F.Y.I., if you can't get acrylic ink, just water down acrylic paint. This is how people who paint miniatures make an acrylic ink analogue for all-over color washes.

[Adam]

I've wet folded sheets of paper that were painted using Acrylic paint. I didn't have any problems like running ink or anything similar. Wet folding should pose no problems.

[aces21]

Frumious, thanks for some really useful advice. I am really keen to give this a go. I have a couple of further questions though which I hope you could answer. Firstly, when you paint on MC + acrylic, does it bleed through at all, or do you get good, duo-coloured paper. And secondly, if I was to water down acrylic to spray on, a-la Joseph Wu, do you have any idea what kind of water-to-paint ratio would give a good result?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

As far as watering down the paint goes, acrylic only needs a small amount of water. I'm not sire of the exact amount as I haven't tried that myself, but I would say enough so that it has the viscosity of water, but not so much that the color starts to be heavily diluted...so...trial and error?

When you paint on the acrylic/MC it will bleed through. The amount it will bleed depends on paper thickness and other factors. On the 35 gsm paper I have done it with it bleeds all the way through, leaving a slightly duller color on the underside. With thicker papers, it tends to bleed through in a spotty non-uniform fashion. I'm guessing that any paper thick enough to not bleed through wouldn't be particularly great for origami. Out of curiosity, what paper are you going to be tinting? And F.Y.I you can always tint two thin sheets and MC them together once they dry.

[aces21]

I'm thinking of painting both elephant hide and tant. This is what Roman appears to recommend in his book.