Bleeding:
You’ll find two kinds of tissue paper on the Internet and in stores that sell art and craft supplies:
One is made for artists, who use it in collage. This tissue paper is designed to run, or “bleed.” Artists actually depend on that quality and use the colored paper for coloring. Then take advantage of the bleeding to create shades and other special effects.
If you use this for paper flowers, you can create colored edges on petals, for example. But you should not put the flowers where they will get wet because the dye will continue to bleed and will color anything it touches.
The other kind of tissue paper is not meant to bleed, and it usually won’t. But it is still a good idea to test it. Just put a piece in water and see if it colors the water.
Stretching:
Tissue paper won’t stretch. That means you can’t get the “cupping” effect that is so important in making realistic roses, tulips and so on. You will also have trouble curling the petals.
While researching for an upcoming article about how crepe paper is made, we learned that crepe paper is actually made from tissue paper! We learned that tissue paper is available in a variety of textured finishes and also comes in prints.
We are working on patterns and techniques for tissue paper flowers that take advantage of these qualities, and hope to offer you a book about them in a few months. (It takes time to get the directions and patterns exactly right!)
Coloring Tip:
We bought a set of child’s water colors at the dollar store (which is going to change its name to the two-dollar store if prices keep going up).
We used the colors without wetting them.
Our goal was to achieve the delicate coloring of the Peace rose, which has yellow petals with deep pink edges.
We worked on the petals before we assembled the flower.
We decided to start with the simplest technique: we rubbed our finger on the block of pink water color and then gently rubbed it on the crepe paper petal. We found that it was tricky to keep the paper still while we were rubbing it, without stretching the paper.
Putting a piece of felt under the paper helped keep it still.
We had to be quite gentle with the paper, but that was alright because the coloring process was very enjoyable.
By applying several light layers, we were able to achieve the results we wanted.
We found that Q-tips and paint brushes work, too. Use the same kind of soft, short-haired brush you use for dry-brushing.
