It's Spring -- Think Green! -- and Try Dyeing with Tissue Paper & Silhouette Stencils

Green -- the color of hope; of new beginnings!

Please click on the image below to better see details both in the green background and orange-green foreground.

Above:  Before being cut into collage pieces, the foreground papers were printed with my 9"x 12" stencil Feathers 9.  The green background is a Gelli Plate print made with my 9" x 12" stencil Vases.

In planning today's step-by-step project, I definitely had green in mind.  My supplies: 


"bleeding" tissue paper (tissue that loses color when wet)

a scraping tool (an old credit card or an artist's spatula)

a container of water

silhouette stencils (examples:  Cats ... Ginkgo ... Small Thistles ... et al.)

masking tape (optional)

a hair drier (optional)

Nitrile or latex gloves (optional, but recommended)

a paintbrush or a spritzer water filled with water

any 3-dimensional medium, such as molding paste, Titanium White heavy body acrylic paint, heavy gloss gel medium or heavy matte gel medium

a sturdy substrate (I used greeting card blanks cut from 140-lb. watercolor paper)


Masking tape is optional, but I think it helps make this particular technique more successful than it might be otherwise.  Below, I've taped one of my silhouette stencils -- Ginkgo -- to my blank greeting card cover.  I've also taped the card cover to my work surface.

Note:  The stencil is stained with paint from previous uses!

Below lower left:  heavy gel medium and an old credit card.

The next photo shows that I have switched from the credit card to an artist's spatula.  You can click on this image to better see details.  Here, I've begun to spread the gel medium thru the stencil openings.

Note:  I've used only the right side of the stencil.

The photo above shows the surface after the stencil has been lifted.  (When using any three-dimensional medium, I immediately clean the stencil.  Otherwise some of the stencil openings might be permanently closed, once the medium dries.)

While waiting for the gel to dry, I've brought out the tissue paper.  There are several brands available; the photo below shows the one I've chosen.

Below:  Having let the gel dry, I've cut a piece of tissue to a size just larger than the card cover.  On the left is the brush for spreading water across the card cover's surface.  A water spritzer will work, too.

Below:  After wetting the surface with water, I've covered it with the tissue paper.  My next step was to press my glove-protected fingertips all around each of the individual  three-dimensional shapes --  to insure that the tissue paper touches the areas around the shapes.

Above is another greeting card cover, pictured during the same tissue-bleeding phase of the process.  For this card, I used my 6" x 6" silhouette stencil Small Thistles.

The tissue paper can be allowed to air-dry, but as shown below, I've used a hair drier.

The tissue peels off the substrate very easily, once it's completely dry.

Two examples are below --

Above are two card covers created this way.  I could have left them  as-is, but I decided to keep going a little more --

Above, on the Small Thistles card, I've used glitter glue to outline  shapes.  Below, on the Ginkgo card, I have added Pan Pastels to the raised leaves.
   

Note:  After the tissue dye is dry, it's waterfast.  So you can  go over it with other wet media without worry that the dye might re-hydrate and cause smearing.

Today's stencils include:

9" x 12" Vases

6" x 6" Small Thistles (which also comes in a 9" x 12" size)

Feathers 9 stencil (9" x 12" but also comes in a 6" x 6" size)

Ginkgo (6" x 6")

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To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.   You'll find other silhouette stencils of mine, including 6" x 6" Cats and many more.