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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #48:

I began with a yellow layer followed by an orange one on a piece of hot press watercolor paper. After it dried, I applied fluid acrylic magenta with a moldable foam stamp. I created the stamp by heating a piece of Pen Score with a heat gun and then pressing the foam on top of scattered wild rice. According to the package, you can even “melt away” unwanted designs by reheating the foam.

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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #47:

Here’s another example of what happens when you start with dark paper instead of white. This time I began with dark green Lama Li Lokta, a handmade paper from Nepal. While it has an interesting texture because of the fibers, I wanted more color variety. I used a crumpled piece of plastic to apply acrylic paint, making an irregular pattern of yellow greens and blue greens to contrast with the color of the paper.

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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #46:

This is an example of paper marbling. I used a thin tool to swirl patterns in the colors before transferring the paint to a prepared piece of bluish gray Canson Mi Tientes. It’s the paper color and the use of white paint that give it such a distinctive look – this is what the paper looked like before I marbled it:

Here’s the same blue and black paint on white paper: