Easy Paste Papers
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I've
always loved the look of homemade paste papers. However, I'm not the Princess
of Patience, so the endless recipes that require boiling of starch or paste
and waiting for them to thicken or set up have always put me off. Being an
adventurous girl, I decided to find a faster way to get to the fun part---the
actual making of the papers---while still preserving the look I love. Here's
the method I used to make all the papers shown at right (in about half an
hour, excluding drying time): You'll
need these materials:
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Place freezer paper or plastic wrap on your work table,
and tape it down so it won't shift around. I worked on two 8-1/2 x 11 inch
papers at a time, so my piece of freezer paper wasn't too big. If you're working
on large paper, try using a piece of plastic drop cloth from the hardware
store, or a big plastic trash bag. You want plastic rather than newspaper,
because you'll be dragging some of your paint out onto your work
surface---and also, because no matter how dry your paper gets on plastic,
you'll still be able to peel it off. |
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To mix up a batch of blue, I squeezed a bit of blue
acrylic paint into one of my applesauce containers. This blob is roughly the
size of a quarter. |
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Next, I added a bit of starch---a little less than a
quarter cup. This wasn't something I measured out---I just sort of poured a
little bit in. You'll find that once you start making these papers, you'll
come up with your own idea of the perfect amount of pigment and starch. |
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I mixed my paint and starch together using a cheap
bristle brush. One brush for each color, to keep the colors from getting
muddy. Notice that I store my brushes laying across the container, rather than
stuck in it---that's to keep me from sticking the brush I have in my hand in
the wrong color, and also to keep my brushes from getting overloaded with
paste |
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Apply some
mixed up paste color to a piece of paper. Don't be shy---this isn't a dry
brush kind of technique---but don't get your paper sopping wet, either. A
nice, liberal coat of color is what you want. Don't worry about streaks and
blobs (or in my case, bubbles from shaking the starch before I poured it).
Think of those things as texture, and encourage them if they seem to look
interesting. Notice that I'm painting right off the edges of my
paper---that's a good thing, because I'll end up with color from edge to edge
when I'm finished. |
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I worked back and forth between two pieces of paper.
After applying color to my other sheet, I came back to this one, and painted
on a second, darker blue. The first coat wasn't dry yet, so it went on as a
streaky coat---that's OK, because the streaks are going to work for me.
Again, I painted right off the edges of my paper, to get a full sheet of
color. |
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Now for some texture. On this piece, I
used my faux finish comb, which gave big, bold stripes. Starting just above
the edge of my paper, I placed the comb into the color, pressed lightly, and
dragged in a straight-ish line down the full length
of my sheet and off the edge, giving stripes from top to bottom of the paper.
I repeated this until the full width of the paper was striped. Then I went back
again, and dragged a second time. What you're doing with this step is sort of
displacing some of the paste, revealing what's underneath. On my paper, that
was a very pale blue, since my first blue coat had dried just a little. |
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In the samples at right, you can see
some wide stripes, and some narrow ones. The narrower lines were done with a
cheap plastic men's comb from the dollar store. You'll notice that some of my
papers have straight lines---I did those as I described above. Some have
curvy lines---I simply dragged my comb in a wavy line across my paper, and
repeated the curve all the way across. Sometimes, I dragged both down the
paper, and then across it, creating sort of a plaid effect. Sometimes, I did
the plaid effect using curved lines. This is the fun part, so experiment a
little---anything you do to create a pattern on your paper is fair game |
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Once you
have a paper finished, you'll want to move it off your workspace and let it
dry. Gently lift one corner and peel it off your plastic, then lift the corner
diagonally opposite, and lift it. Place your wet paper onto a stack of
newspaper and let it dry. Mine took about an hour to set up.
Your
papers might curl a little when they're dry. Don't worry---you can pull the dry
sheets over the edge of a table to straighten them, or stack them under some
heavy books overnight. Worst case: you can iron them flat again.
Everything
cleans up with soap and water, but do this before the
paste sets up for the least amount of scrubbing.