Tissue Paper Textured Paintings

Today I was trying out a new lesson for school...using tissue paper to texture a landscape before painting.

The mountain kinda of paints itself as you add color the tissue paper gives you definition. I still have to try this out on my own kids...my TEST subjects yet....but here is the how to :



Click on photo for a closer view.



Materials Required:

watercolor paper
white tissue paper
gesso
old credit or gift card
watercolor or tempura paint
paintbrush






Take some watercolor paper....I'm using 140lb but at school I'll only have 90lb so I will probably mount it onto some thin cardboard to minimize buckling.


Draw out a quick sketch of your mountain for a guide.





Take plain white tissue paper and rip into some strips and triangular shapes. You don't want to have any perfectly straight edges.












Squeeze out some gesso....you can find this at Wal Mart or at Michael's....its like really thick acrylic paint that is kinda of chalky...its used to prime canvas before painting.











Apply to your paper using an old credit card or one of those numerous gift/bonus cards you have lying around.

Apply to your mountain area in a cross hatching motion....you are building up texture....work in small areas of about 5 inches






Apply a piece of tissue...scrunching it as you lay it down to give it some texture. Don't worry if it goes off the edge you can trim these edges when it dries.


Apply some gesso on top of the tissue as well.











You can also add texture just with the gesso itself adding some globs here and there,












Here I'm trying some bubble wrap for a different texture type.



Let your paper fully dry.










Trim off those edges.











Start painting...I added the sky first...you can use watercolor or tempura cake paint.














Here I'm lifting off paint with a kleenex to form clouds.....kids always love this step as it's like magic.













When the sky has dried add in your mountain color...as you add color the tissue texture will be revealed.

Make sure to vary your colors with light and dark shades...don't paint the mountain all one color. I used blue, brown, and black.





















I also added some trees in green tones as well as some yellow.















Here is another one I tried but I think this technique worked better on the mountain.




It was fun and an interesting twist.


see you next time

gail