Activity one (Approx 40 mins) Vintage design. Using your stain in a collage (tips for future)

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Using your stain in a collage (tips for future)

Alternatively you could draw an illustration on a separate piece of paper for blending and editing in Photoshop.

The images above have been scanned and taken into Photoshop:

(1). Scan in your drawing and your tea stain and combine in Photoshop (2). Experiment with different blending modes and effects to get different looks and results (3 & 4).

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Activity one

(Approx 40 mins)

Vintage design

Create a tea stain background for a vintage design. See next page for instructions on tea staining.

Once dry, use your ink pen to create a piece of art with one of the following words as inspiration: love, glee, hope, envy, anger, peace, recycle, sadness, gloom, horror, flora, fauna.

Using your ink pen, illustrate your interpretation of this word on your tea stained paper.

Mixed Media

This resource includes two activities for

class time and two that you may wish to

try yourself in the future.

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How to tea stain for a vintage effect

You will need:

• Tea bag

• Boiled water in a mug (don’t fill the mug) • Strong coffee in a different mug

• Teaspoon

• Watercolour paper or decent matt paper (NOT printer paper) • Newspaper

Put the tea bag into the mug of boiled water and stir until the tea is very strong and dark (1). Use two tea bags for a darker result. When the tea bag is cool enough to handle, squeeze it out and ‘paint’ it onto the paper using various different strokes (2). For a splatter effect, throw the tea bag onto the paper (3), for dark lines and scratches use the teaspoon or sharp object to scratch the paper and then stain that area (3). When areas start to dry, paint more tea onto the paper for a layered effect (3).

Squeeze out the tea bag and drop it into the coffee and repeat the process. Coffee stains are much darker and produce a much more dramatic finish (4). For an actual coffee stain, place the cup on top of the paper and gently squeeze some coffee onto the side of the cup, allow to dry and remove the cup (4 & 5).

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Activity two

(Approx 40 mins)

Create your own cut paper collage

You will need:

• Different painted backgrounds with different painting techniques applied (experiment first with different painting techniques on paper—see next page)

• Scissors, glue stick, ink pen for drawing, paper

• Create the backgrounds you would like to use for each shape (1–3). Draw your shapes onto your preferred backgrounds and cut them out with the scissors (4–6). Choose your background and start arranging the shapes in a pleasing composition. Glue the shapes down (7). Use an ink pen and put in some finishing touches (8).

Draw shapes onto your painted paper (when dry, cut them out)

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Painting techniques with watercolour

Wet on wet

Paint an area with a paint and immediately paint over it in a different colour, in a style/pattern/texture of your choice. The new colour will bleed into the original area causing a furry result (1).

Wet on dry

Paint an area and allow it to dry. Paint over the dry area with the same or different colour. The new colour will not bleed but will create a layered effect (2).

Cross Hatch

Paint a series of lines in one direction and then paint over them in the opposite direction, creating a cross effect (3). Experiment with wet and dry techniques for different results.

Splatter

Dipping your brush into different colours, splash the paint onto the paper using your arm, or finger tapping on the brush for different splash sizes, wet colours will bleed into each other creating other colours (4)

Wet on water

Paint with CLEAN water onto your paper and then brush or tap colour in with your paint brush. Experiment with different amounts of water and colours for many different results (5 & 6).

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Cut paper collage (tips for future)

Another popular mixed media technique is cut paper collage. This is a great way to bring a variety of colour, texture and pattern together to create a vibrant piece of art. Some artists that use this are Eric Carle, Amy Schimler, Laurie Clarke and many more.

Eric Carle

Amy Schimler

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Photocopy transfer onto canvas (tips for future)

You will need:

• Regular gloss gel (1) • Primed canvas (2) • Paint brushes

• A photocopy of an image you would like to transfer (3) • Water

Paint the gel onto the canvas approximately 1-2mm thick (4). Place the photocopy face down onto the canvas in the desired place (5). Gently smooth the image on with your fingers and allow to dry (approximately 5-10 minutes). Wet the back of the image with water and a paint brush (6). Once paper is wet, rub it off with a finger (7). The more vigorous the rubbing, the more cracked the image will appear. You can now paint over the image (optional) with acryllic paints or water proof ink pen (8).

Once you have achieved the desired look, seal the image in with another layer of gel and allow to dry, add texture if desired (9).

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