Layers Upon Layers: Mixed Media Art

Tissue paper inclusions

by Cyndi on April 17th, 2007

Wecome to part 2 of our tissue paper series and another Technique Tuesday!

Today we’re going to be looking at how you can use tissue paper to create a paper with inclusions. Your piece will end up looking similar to the handmade papers you can buy with flower parts, bits of text, etc embedded within them.

1. 
   You’re going to need to gather together the items you wish to embed, a sheet of paper to use as a substrate, and some white (or pale colored tissue). Stick down all of your inclusions using liquid acrylic medium.
2. 
   Gently gently gently, apply liquid medium all over your page, including on top of your inclusions. If they are just too delicate for this treatment, you can use spray adhesive instead. But oh, how I hate that stuff! I can never use it without creating a total mess! Anyway, once you’ve got a layer of adhesive down, carefully lay a piece of tissue on top. I like to smooth out most of the wrinkles for this technique, but making it wrinkley like we did last week would give you a whole new set of options.
3. 
   Add any paints that you desire. I prefer to wait until the piece is dry before doing this since the top layer is so delicate. But you’ll get better seepage into lower layers if you do it while it’s still wet.
4. Just like we saw last week, you can also do a variation on this technique to produce tissue without the substrate so that you can layer it into your collages. Instead of gluing your inclusions to a piece of stock paper or watercolor paper, carefully lay them between two sheets of tissue instead. Place this on top of freezer or waxed paper so that it will release when dry. Saturate but don’t soak the sandwich with acrylic medium. When it’s dry, peel it up carefully. These sheets make beautiful tags, and look great used in altered books.

Related Stories

Creating backgrounds for artwork
Creating Backgrounds for Artwork
Star light, star bright
Using tissue paper as a guide
Stamped tissue paper

POSTED IN: Collage, Mixed Media, Paper, Technique Tuesday, Tutorials & Techniques