Staining Papers

A lot of collage artists paint/decorate/stain their own papers to use in their work. I was first introduced to this idea by Gerald Brommer in his book Collage Techniques, my very first book on collage. I continue to develop techniques to use in my scribble-painted papers, learning from others and modifying to suit my tastes and needs. Recently I bought a video workshop by Carrie Burns Brown that demonstrates her process of staining tissue papers (and much more) for collage. Tissue paper is great for collage because you can see all the layers through its translucency. I'd been ironing tissue paper to freezer paper in order to give it the necessary stiffness for painting on. Carrie simply paints them with diluted fluid acrylics, and once they are dry they have a little body. I added Golden's GAC-500 medium to my stains (experiment with rations of water to paint; mine is about 1:1 to 2:1), or you could add a little gloss medium, just to give it a bit more body. One drawback is that the papers take a while to dry. A few hours or overnight, depending on how much stain you put on them. Cover your table with white plastic garbage bags before staining the tissue papers.

This is one I stained with quinacridone gold (my all-time favorite paint) plus a little black. You an see how the tissue wrinkles when it's wet. I spritzed it with a little Glimmer Mist on this one before it dried.


I love how translucent tissue papers are! The wrinkles show up in the paper once it's dry. I actually ironed some of mine, between two sheets of parchment.
More on this as I work on ways to further decorate the papers and use them in my work. Carrie's video has much much more and she gives lots of tips on her materials and processes. I may use these papers in fabric-paper as well as collage. I will keep you posted. Thanks for visiting.