It's crystal clear

A favourite paper is one that I was introduced to in one of Nita Leland's books, Creative Collage Techniques.  Although the process is somewhat more time consuming than my painted papers, the results are clearly (pun intended) worth it.

I start by placing archival tissue paper on top of butcher paper, and paint carefully from the centre of the paper up to the top edge, and then from the centre of the paper to the lower edge with liquid acrylic gloss medium.  The tissue paper is fragile, so a gentle touch is required.  I allow this to dry overnight.

I carefully lift the tissue from the butcher paper, turn it over, and repeat the process on the other side, allowing it to dry overnight again.  In any of the above steps, I need to ensure that Opal the assistant cat refrains from any interaction.

 Here on the next day, I've crumpled the resulting paper, opened it again, sprayed it with a healthy dose of water and have the two well-thinned acrylic paints ready to apply.

 After paint application, the paper looks wild and woolly, and VERY wet.  I may add more sprayed water at this point, and possibly some glitter or other light elements before I leave it to dry overnight yet again.

I'm always fascinated on the fourth day to see the final results.  At this point I test the resulting crystalline paper with an assortment of bond backings (here white, blue and pink per the top edge, with the butcher paper across the length of the bottom edge) to check the possibilities.  I often use all (or none) of  the bonds I test, because the range of background creates different, yet complementary papers.

It's always a great day when I can play with colour - what have you been colouring lately?