Staining Tissue Paper to use in Collage

Here is a video I just released demonstrating how to make stained tissue paper in small quantities. In 2011 I did a post about staining tissue papers in much larger quantity, taking up a lot of space to make full sheets. Read it here and find some useful links. This video shows a more compact version.

You need palette paper (or use freezer paper); white tissue paper (I use Blick); fluid acrylic paints - transparent colors give you the best results; water, brushes.... I think that's it.

Stone Stack #6,  9x12"

Stone Stack #7, 9x12"

Stone Stack #8, 9x12"

Stone Stack #9, 9x12"

I used the resulting material in the collages above. These are very simple studies in which I am focusing on scale, value, and arrangement of elements.

You can find the pieces available as prints or products here.

Playing with Value

In today's Drawing Practice exercise we are going to see how we can get a range of values (light to dark) in a few different materials. Leave color out of it for now, and just see if you can create very light areas, very dark ones, and a range in between.

For now we are just experimenting with different materials; next week (yes, I know I said I would do six Drawing Practice posts, but I'm doing one more) we will use these values to make drawings.

Choose a drawing implement, such as pencil, and start scribbling. Make as many kinds of marks as you can by varying the speed, the pressure, and so forth. Then try to create a range of values from dark to light.

In this one I used pencil, cross-hatching to varying degrees creates the value range.


Same thing in black fine tip felt pen. Here I tried to create different qualities of value by making some areas with more or less straight lines intersecting, and others with loopy scribbles.

I found the black crayon (crayola) the least interesting of my materials. I was surprised, though, that I could actually get a very dark black.


In this final one I used charcoal as well as white pastel. I used a kneaded eraser to smudge and make lines through the charcoal areas. Charcoal and pastel are so dusty, I really don't enjoy working with them. But they do offer such cool possibilities.

Hope you enjoy playing with values this week. We'll see what we can do with them next week. Thanks for visiting!