Reply With QuoteFrom what I gathers you want to let the map soak longer than you think as it will lighten up in the oven.
Tea experiment
So here is a test map that I drew up and tested it with tea this time instead of coffee. Thoughts?
From what I gathers you want to let the map soak longer than you think as it will lighten up in the oven.
Tea, coffee, or anything high in tannin is a good way to get that old-paper feel (if you can lay your hands on black walnut hulls, you can make of tea of them that will get an incredibly dark brown with very little time). The brownish coloring of old paper is usually caused by oxidation of the paper fibers more than stains, though. This oxidation also accounts for the non-uniform coloring commonly found on old pages as well (a page from an old book tends to be more discolored towards the edges of the page and a scroll will be more discolored at the ends and the outside/inside few layers due to contact with air).
A fairly quick way to age paper is to bake it without staining it first. A few minutes at 300-350F (definitely below 451F) will start to get the old look, and you can get book-style effects by cooking a stack of paper at once. Cheap papers tend to discolor more quickly than good-quality paper. The baking technique has the side effect that it will tend to make your paper more brittle (especially cheaper papers) due to oxidation of the lignins and reaction with acids commonly found in cheap paper. If you can get some iron gall ink and a dip pen, then you can even replicate the burn-through and haloing from the highly acid ink formulation.
The walnut hulls make sense. I do want to try the baking idea I don't have a dip or fountain pen since my old pen broke on me.
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