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Monday, March 26, 2018

Playtime with bleeding tissue paper!

I do have another food/friend post but thought I'd first share what our little art group gathering did last Friday!  Bleeding tissue paper on fabric and watercolor paper! 

I think years ago we played with bleeding tissue paper, as the process seemed so familiar, but lucky for me my old age doesn't allow me to totally remember so this was a fun technique to try (again??)!  I'm going to be selfish and show my pieces since I only did 3 and they are all dry so I could take pics after they were dry.    I'll post what the ladies' did in my next post. 

First off, our instructor for the day was Beth...and she was very well prepared.  We started off with laying the tissue  paper in strips/whatever size or shape and placed any which way on our fabric.

At this point, you have lots of options....spray with water, brush water on top of the paper or use a dropper to drop water on (thanks to Nancy who gave each of us a really nice large dropper!).  Now you just wait for the tissue paper/fabric to dry!    That's always the hard part isn't it!


This was a piece of watercolor paper that Beth played with.  Cool!
circles of tissue paper cut and laid on watercolor paper and water applied

Beth tilted the paper after she applied the water.  

This was my first attempt at placing the tissue paper.  My fabric was just a cheap cotton from JoAnn's..nothing special.

And this is how it turned out after drying!  Not bad is it!


Next up I used green.  One suggestion given to us by Nancy (who has played with bleeding tissue paper before) was to layer the papers, which will give you more intense color.  Good tip!



This piece was very wet and I didn't want to get another piece of fabric/tissue paper out so I placed a small piece of white commercial tone on tone fabric on top! 

This is the piece dried (the bottom piece!)...actually, this was a piece of screen printing that lost some of it's color...here's what it looked like before I washed it and lost all of the color....long story but I forgot to wrap the print and let cure for 24-48 hours.  UGH...dumb mistake...see it's that memory thing again!


You can see some of the brown showing through.  Really the piece looks pretty good and I know I can use it.

This is the front of the commerical tone on tone, which was laid on top.

and the back of it...which I really like...

This was a piece of deli paper that Nancy gave each of us to play with.  It's really cool and and I can't wait to do something with it. I'm thinking using it in some paper/fabric piece. 

I have to say this was quite an easy technique.  But I also have to say I don't intend to wash my pieces.  First off, some say the dye from the tissue paper will fad but Beth did have us use soda ash water to spray with, so we're hoping that will help with retaining most of the color.  I don't want to take a chance because I love the colors I got.

 99% of my work is to hang on walls...if I'm making hum bug bags or some other gift for others, then I make sure to use my hand dyes or commercial fabric I have washed.  Next post I will show what the other ladies did with the tissue paper.  I won't have their end result pictures until next month but at least you'll see can see how they started out.   Stay tuned!

6 comments:

  1. well as the saying goes, what's old is new again. I remember playing with bleeding tissue paper way back when I had a craft group to meet with. I can't remember what projects we did, but I'm sure we had fun.
    xx, Carol

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  2. I actually have never done this technique……tx’s for sharing your experience…..looks like you got some great results!

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  3. Interesting and fun. I was wondering as I read about what kind of dye it is, and how colorfast. Then you answered the question. I've seen reference to bleeding tissue, but have never used it.

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  4. Most of the dyes are very unstable, but treating them the way you did, and keeping them out of direct light ought to help. It's really fun, isn't it? Love the colors!

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  5. Looks like a lot of fun! Always a surprise to see what you actually end up with in projects like this, not a lot of control but that is what I like about them. I am especially take with your deli paper piece. I keep deli paper around the studio, it is fun to work with in so many ways, none of them have to do with deli!

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  6. Isn't it fun trying new things? I also remember been shown this years ago and have some tissue paper that I bought it try it at home and of course have never done it or could remember how to do it anyway!

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Had to put Word Verification back in! Getting strange messages!!!