Fighting the Effects of Aging…..or Not!

One of the “left over” questions from the original Miniature Q&A Blog had to do with aging. 

Aging paper or cloth using tea, coffee, inks and ….good lord!!....scorching  were discussed under the “Paper”  topic. 

But miniaturists age lots of other things, too.  

What are some ways to age wood or stone or upholstered furniture or air dry clay or walls made of styrofoam or Mod Rock or spackling paste???  The list goes on…..

I’ll start with a tip I learned many years ago when I took a class by Bill Lankford.  The building in question was a ½ scale Chicago brownstone.  The walls were molded brick and architectural detailing in stone, but the actual composition of the walls was some sort of light-weight foam.  After the bricks and stone were painted (and thoroughly dried), a wash of denatured alcohol and India ink was liberally applied.  Voila! Instant old building!

The proportion is lots of alcohol and very little ink….like maybe 4 – 6 oz of alcohol and 2-3 drops of India ink. I think the "official" recipe was 1 tbsp ink to 1 qt alcohol.  We brushed it on with a large brush but I have also used this in a spray bottle on painted Paper Clay brand air dry clay.  I have also brushed it on to raw and painted wood with good results.  Use an old brush or one of those cheap bristle brushes.

I do not know if the reaction is different if one uses isopropyl alcohol as opposed to denatured alcohol but because their chemical composition is different, I’d guess that there might be. My understanding is that India ink was made by suspending lampblack (or soot) particles in denatured alcohol or even vinegar. 

Which reminds of something I read on Casey's blog just the other day.   Woolly Vinegar

This reference suggests using tea on the wood prior to the vinegar solution.

Be careful with the India ink as it stains permanently and is almost impossible to get off your skin…wear  gloves and old clothing and protect your table tops and floors.

Here are two examples of aging.

The original looked exactly like the settee on the right...which was dark glossy green.  I dropped it a while back and the front leg snapped.  The repair was too obvious and I put aside until recently when I needed another chair for the Alice project. 

I painted it white and then used several washes of various colors of acrylics to achieve the "aged" look...the added mosses help, too.

This is a door I did recently for a castle ruin I'm working on.

 

I used the alcohol solution on the raw wood after gluing.  You can see how it did not take where glue had seeped into the wood, even though I wiped it off well...I thought!

For my purposes, it was ok.  I also used some of Tim Holz's alcohol inks.  And ended up using some of acrylic paints (both washes and straight) to acheive that green damp and the rust.

I aged the metal bits also with paint as the metal aging product I had did not work on these jewelry findings.  First I gave them a light coat of Testors enamel (flat black) as the water based paints wouldn't stick to the metal.  Then I used burnt sienna and some grey and green to achieve the aging.

Here a great site:  How to Make it Old

The author discusses supplies, techniques and how to use "layering" to age an entire room or setting! Thanks to Lyn from lynstinycorner for the link!

So what about the rest of you?  How do you age your miniature creations?  Do you have more than one technique you favor?   Let hear from YOU!!!