Materials can vary, but you need paste and paper. I am using a medium weight cold press Arches because I am going to use the paper for soft-cover notebooks. Technically, you could use whatever paper you want. If you plan on using this paper for art purposes, then use something archival. If you are making gift wrap, then maybe some butcher paper or craft paper is the more economic option. The one thing to keep in mind is that a light weight paper will curl and wrinkle like crazy when you put the paste on it and more so as it dries. So plan accordingly. For paste, you could use a regular, cooking flour and water slurry, but I like my nice wheat flour because it makes for a less goopy and more translucent paste. But again, if you are just making up gift wrap, do yourself a favor and go cheap on this.
The funny thing is that I always forget how far the paste goes. I always think that I have just enough for a few sheets and it turns out that I have enough to mural the house. So a morning project always morphs into a whole day of painting and messy hands.
The last component to the process is pigment, or some form of color. You can use anything water-based to tint your paste. Today I opted to use some leftover tubes of watercolor and gouache (from years ago, before I started making my own paints).
I am doing all of this on a tarp. Well, it is my shower curtain. It is due for a wash and the naturally water resistant nature of the fabric makes this very easy to clean. You really will need to put down some type of tarp. No matter how clean you are, you will always have a bit of paste on the edges of the paper and then this will transfer to other things. Try to use a dark fabric, just because pigments like cadmium (bright red) never seem to wash out of things. So yeah, my shower curtain now looks a bit like a Psycho throwback. Can't wait to explain that one to house guests.
I also have extra containers for mixing, brushes for mixing, water for thinning the paste down, a paint knife for well, whatever, and then anything that might make an attractive mark in the paste. Stuff like stamps, combs, etc.
The procedure is pretty foolproof. The only hard part is that you don't want chunks of paste in your mixture. If you have ever made any instant food product from a powder, you know the way to avoid this is to slowly mix in fluids or to pass everything through a sieve/strainer. Make your choice on this. Personally, I just try to slowly add in fluids.
So I add in pigment and then mix until I get paste that is the consistency of runny yogurt.
Then, just start painting.
You can do multiple coats so you have different colors.
Once the paste starts drying, you can start stamping.
If you stamp while things are still really wet, the stamps tend to be loose and undefined.
Of course, this can be a nice look sometimes.
You can also combine stamps with drawing. Just use something a bit blunt as a stylus, otherwise you risk tearing up your damp paper.
Same thing goes when you use a comb to make marks. It is so easy to rip up the paper if you aren't careful.
Or you can just play around with your brush strokes.
Once you are done 'painting', let the paper dry. It should be ready for art or crafting within a few hours. There might be some curling or wrinkling of your paper once it dries, but this should relax as the environmental humidity rises or after you lightly dampen (via the back) and press/stretch the paper. Or if you just put glue on the back as you use it for a project, that will flatten things right out. The heavier the paper you use, the less of a problem this will be.
I hope that you have some fun with this. As long as you keep your paint/pigment non-toxic, this can also be a kid-friendly project. Just use a reeeeaaallly big tarp then.
