Staining papers

3 layers hung up to dry

We often have a little left over coffee in our
coffee pot from our morning's batch.
The liquid coffee is such a wonderful warm color and it stains. I use that staining power to transform the tracing paper that often covers the boats. Here you can see the process in play.

The choices are to simply sprinkle the liquid in patches, or drench most of the paper's surface.

Liquid coffee  picks up the texture of the floor

Or I can use a grid underneath the paper and get some patterns going. But whichever way I go, it is a very random effect because the paper has a mind of its own. Tracing paper comes in rolls of various widths and a few tones. It is stronger and holds up better than tissue paper.
And once it is fixed with a gel medium, it behaves a bit like vellum.

The effect I was after when I started doing this years ago was to have my paper look like thin, translucent animal skin with a mottled quality.
To go back further- I checked in at
http://www.merriam-webster.com
Definition of vellum-

1. a fine-grained unsplit lambskin, kidskin, or calfskin prepared especially for writing on or for binding books

Grid used for coffee

2.  a strong cream-colored paper

Origin of Vellum

Middle English velym, from Anglo-French velim, veeslin, from *veelin, adjective, of a calf, from veel calf

My studio smells a lot like coffee and it is a lot of fun too.