Painting with Tissue Paper

Maybe you didn't know you can paint with tissue paper.  I didn't, until I saw this post about it by Jeanette Nyberg at Artchoo: http://artchoo.com/tissue-paper-art-valentines-hearts/.

She explains the process and has step-by-step pictures in her blog post.  I loved the idea of having a "surprise" painting project; it is a surprise because you put pieces of tissue paper OVER your design drawn with oil pastels, then use a paint brush and water to "paint" right over the tissue paper.  You don't know what the final picture will look like until after you let the wet tissue paper sit and "bleed" color onto the paper underneath.''

For some well-written instructions, take a look at Jeanette's post; I'll show some of the valentines we made here:

Please note:  To do tissue paper painting, you must use a special type of "Art Tissue" that will bleed color.  It won't work if you try using ordinary gift wrap tissue; I tried that before I knew what the difference was-- and the result was no color under some areas that had gift wrap tissue over them.  I had some of the right kind of tissue in our craft cupboard, but I had been trying to use a combination of both gift wrap tissue and art tissue.  In the picture at the left below, the white areas resulted because there was pink gift wrap tissue above.  So if you do want to have some white areas, you could use two types of tissue purposely.

I really enjoyed learning this new painting technique.  Of course, it doesn't have to be just for making valentines-- we'll be using it to do some other kinds of artwork, too . . . but since Valentine's Day is almost here, making valentines was a great way to try it out!