Maybe it’s because of the drought.
Or maybe it’s because we didn’t fertilize last spring.
Whatever the reason, the trees around our house still haven’t started turning colors yet and it’s almost Thanksgiving!
I decided to let my young artist create some fall colors of her own to use in fall art projects.
She scooped about 5 tblsp. of methyl cellulose into a pan with an inch of water in it. This thickens the water so that paint will stay on top of the surface, like paper marbling but much simpler and without sizing the paper ahead of time. Laundry starch does the same thing.
After the water thickened, she began to squeeze different paint colors into the pan.
She used a marbling comb made out of cardboard and toothpicks to gently rake through the paint.
She put the paper carefully on the surface and then gently pulled it up.
The papers come up with awesome gorgeous colors! This is so fun and rewarding. My young artist made a lot of beautiful papers, thoroughly enjoying the process of creating different color combinations and different patterns.
Here are some of our favorites:
The papers were hung up to dry in the backyard overnight.
And this post is getting long so…
I’ll show you the colorful autumn pictures created using these papers next!
How fun! Did you use regular typing paper for this? Thanks for including a link for purchasing the methyl cellulose. I look forward to seeing the project completed with this paper. So many possibilities!
Kara has done this at school and brought home a great project. Yours came out great. I love the colors you chose.
You and your family are so darn creative! Nice!
Lee
Ann Carbine Best visits Wrote By Rote on Saturday 11/12/11
Um, WOW! You are so amazing – this post and last – SUCH creative, unique and inspiring projects – I absolutely LOVE this – and can imagine all the amazing art that can and will be created with it! You are an awesome Mama! xoxo
I can think of so many projects to do with such beautiful paper! Thank you for sharing! t.xoxo
I love the idea of making your own colored paper. I’m going to have to give this a try! Thank you for sharing!!! ~Sophia
GORGEOUS!!!! I have a quick question, you stated that liquid starch will do the same thing. Did you mean in place of the cellulose and water? I have liquid starch, so how would I use that to create these marvelous marbled papers??
If I can do this with the starch, I will post on my homeschool blog and link back to you. Thanks for sharing.
@Kimmie –Hey, Kimmie, glad you came by. You can use the starch in place of the cellulose. Still need the water. Both the cellulose and starch will thicken the water so that the paint sort of floats on the top and allows you to get the swirly colors on your paper. I used the cellulose because I had ordered it from Martha Stewart a while back and wanted to use it up but when we do this again I’ll just use starch. If you were going to marble and wanted a professional look, you may want to try the cellulose, though. It creates ‘cleaner’ swirls (hope that makes sense) but for kids the starch works! And much cheaper! Have a great day. 🙂