Bleeding Tissue Paper Art Ideas and Inspiration

Bleeding Tissue Paper Art Ideas for Adults

As artists we are always looking for ways to make our art unique and original. Bleeding tissue paper art will give you an easy opportunity to make something a little bit different from what’s out there.

It’s an easy technique to do, and can add a little extra texture and color to your finished works of art. Statues are the first thing that come to mind when thinking about what type of drawings will look good for the finished artwork. But there’s a ton of other opportunities for this technique.

First, and foremost, I need to mention that there are two different types of tissue paper. Bleeding and non-bleeding. Not all tissue paper will bleed. It will specify right on the packaging if it’s bleeding or non-bleeding tissue paper.

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Art Supplies

Needed for Artist Trading Cards

Choosing the Right Tissue Paper for Your Art

As I mentioned above, you need to make sure you’re using bleeding tissue paper. It will say right in the description which type it is. Another thing you need to pay attention to is how bold the colors are. If the tissue paper is really dark, the ink that bleeds onto your paper will be really dark.

So before you choose which tissue paper to use you’ll need to take into consideration how you’re going to use it in your art. If you want your bleeding tissue paper art to be more subtle, you’ll want to make sure you use paler tissue paper.

Once you start looking at it, and paying closer attention to the colors, you’ll see what I mean.

Colors

The first thing you need to do is to cut up your tissue paper into small pieces. When you pull your tissue paper off after it’s dry, you will be able to see the outline of where the paper was at. Therefore, the size of your pieces will determine how your final backgrounds will look.

Before you cut your tissue paper you’ll need to decide what type of color theme you will use. Color is one of The 7 Elements of Art and is important to understand.

You could use only warm colors, or only cool colors. Or you could use primary colors and let them mix together on the paper. I decided on warm color for my example. The packet of tissue paper has a variety of colors mixed in. Just separate out the colors you want and cut them into pieces.

Keep in mind that when your tissue paper bleeds the colors will mix together in that area.

How to Make Tissue Paper Bleed

To make tissue paper bleed all you need to do is add water to it. This can be done using a paint brush or a spray bottle.

Begin by covering a section of your paper with water using either a brush or a spray bottle. I used a spray bottle for this example.

Lay pieces of bleeding tissue paper over the water, slightly overlapping your pieces. When placing your tissue paper, use different colors next to each other. If you use the same color side by side the color will bleed together and form a larger area of that color. Which is fine if that’s what you are trying to do.

You may need to cover the tops of the tissue paper with more water, depending on how damp the tissue paper gets. The excess water will make the paper bleed.

Continue working your way around your paper until all of the white areas are covered with bleeding tissue paper. Alternatively, you could leave some of the areas white. It really just depends on the look you are going for. I would suggest experimenting a bit with this technique.

You do want to avoid putting too much excess water on your paper as it will cause some damage to the fibers making it harder to work with. However, this won’t be much of a problem if you’re using watercolor paper.

How Long Should You Let Your Bleeding Tissue Paper Dry

Because of the amount of water needed for this technique, your paper will take quite a bit of time to completely dry. If you’re going to be doing some drawings on top of the tissue paper, you’ll have to give it quite a bit of time to dry. Most likely overnight.

Depending on what type of art you’re going to be doing this time period could be a bit shorter.

Don’t remove your tissue paper until it has dried.

Remove Tissue Paper Pieces

After leaving your paper to completely dry, peel off the tissue paper into the garbage. Most of the pieces with fall right off without much effort. A few of your pieces may need to be picked off, but should come off fairly easily.

As you can see there are several areas that are still white. If the look you get isn’t what you desire, you can also add another layer using new pieces of tissue paper.

Bleeding Tissue Paper Artist Trading Cards

These backgrounds make great artist trading card blanks that can be used to draw works of art over the top of. Begin by cutting your paper into 10 pieces that measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches, which is the standard size for ATCs.

Download this free template that illustrates how to get the most cards from your sheet of paper.

Next, round of the corners of each card using a corner punch. This step is optional, but I really like how they look with the rounded corners so I have been making most of my cards this way.

That’s all there is to it. Now your artist trading cards are ready to receive amazing drawings that everyone will want to trade for.

Variations of Colors

These artist trading card backgrounds were done using only cool colors. The colors you use can change the way your artwork feels. Try experimenting with some different colors.

Drawing Ideas and Inspiration

What you choose to draw for your bleeding tissue paper art is only limited by your imagination. One of the great things about working on artist trading cards is that they’re small and take a lot less time to finish. Therefore, they are perfect for experimenting and trying out new ideas.

And the more you work on something, the more creative you will start to be. So have fun and try some new ideas out and see what they look like.