Paper Peeling Technique
Demonstrated by Kelly Shults
July 2005-Art Explorations 



Supplies: 

•	Glue, Modge Podge, or Gel Medium
•	A surface for your background: (canvas, altered book pages, heavy-duty cardstock,watercolor paper, etc)
•	Papers to cover your background surface: (sheet music, maps, newspapers, text, dress patterns, etc.) 
•	Masking Tape or any low tack tape
•	Ink Pads
•	Stipple Brush or old/cheap paint brush


** Note: For this demonstration, I am using heavy cardstock as my background surface.




Step 1:
(See Example Picture-A)

•	Take your paper and tear it into pieces.  (As you can see in the preview, I used pages from a book to cover my background surface.)

•	Begin to randomly glue the pieces to your background surface, overlapping them as you go. Take care not to get glue on the top of the paper.

•	After you finish completely covering the background surface, let the glue dry for a few minutes.

•	Trim away excess paper


Step 2:
(See Example Picture-B)

•	Take strips of masking tape and apply randomly to your page.

•	Use a bone folder or your finger to burnish the tape, to make sure it sticks well.

•	Begin to pull up tape.  

•	Pull the tape in all different directions.  You will be pulling up layers of paper, allowing the lower layers of overlapped paper to become visible.


•	This is how the background surface looks (See Example Picture-C) once all the tape has been pulled up. 

•	You can also pull up and scratch away some of the loose pieces of paper for even more distressing. 

Step 3: 
(See Example Picture-D)

•	Take your stipple brush or old paint brush and pounce the bristles into an ink pad to pick up color and stipple the color all over the page.

•	Now take a complimentary or contrasting color of ink and do the same.  You can also directly apply the ink pad over the raised surfaces.

•	On this sample I used several different colors of ink for an aged effect.

•	You aren’t limited to inks! Experiment this technique with acrylic paints,watercolors, glazes, Luminere paints, walnut ink, coffee or tea staining, etc