How to Make Textured Papers

Today I decided to have a play …….. painting textured papers to incorporate into my artwork.

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What fun! and some great results.

This is how I painted them………

I used acrylic paints and photocopy paper. I mostly used old photocopy paper that I always save in order to try and re-use (to save those poor old trees). Here is a sample of some of the papers I used.

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As you can see they have bits of printing on but I like that. I think that it adds to the final surface design. You will see a selection of book pages, old invoices and even the printer test page.

I chose a colour scheme and randomly painted designs on these with my acrylic paints. I used stencils, stamps and some of my mark making tools. (you can see my home made mark making ideas here). I used my acrylic paints fairly watered down.

Once I finished painting each sheet I screwed it up whilst still wet.

Then opened it out and left it lying flat to dry.

When mostly dry but still just a little damp I ironed each sheet between a layer of kitchen roll (top and bottom). This was just to ensure that I didn’t get any paint residue on either the iron or ironing board.

Here is my first stack of completed textured papers.

You will notice that within each painted sheet there are some great areas of texture and colour. I have isolated some for you to see.

A camera is a great way of viewing isolated areas that you may want to incorporate into your artwork.

I then changed my colour scheme and worked with some different colours. Here are some of the papers that I produced.

And here are some of the exciting areas of texture and colour that I found.

This one I loved. It was the one that I painted on the used paper invoice with the italic writing on it. Can’t wait to find a use for that piece!

It was a messy day. Next time I will wear rubber gloves.

But very enjoyable and I am very happy with my new textured papers. Maybe I will have another play day soon and try some different colour schemes.

If you have enjoyed this photo tutorial then please do subscribe to my blog posts (top right) as I am planning to do a series of posts on textured papers over the coming days and weeks. I have lots more ideas that I want to try out.