How to Do it
1. Place water in pot and bring to boil.
2. Meanwhile, place 1 cup cold water in jar, add 1/2 cup flour, and shake vigorously, until thoroughly mixed.
3. When water boils, pour in flour-water mixture while stirring constantly. Cook for a minute or two. It should have thickened. Remove from heat.
4. For each color you want to use, dip some paste into a bowl or container, and add a little tempera (green= B+Y, Purple= R+B, Orange=R+Y, Brown= R+B+Y, etc.). You can mix the color thoroughly with the paste, or not- depending on the effect you want.
5. Lay a sheet of paper to be decorated on the newspapers. Dip a large brush in the color-paste mix and spread the mix on the paper. You can use one color or more than one color, just be sure to cover the whole sheet with paste.
6. You can stop right here, and set the sheet aside to dry, or you can add some texture and pattern.
7. To add texture- Use the texture tools to gently scrape patterns in the paste. Experiment with wavy lines, parallel and intersecting lines, etc. A simple rectangle of cardboard held with its edge against the paper and rotated a quarter turn will create an intriguing bow-tie pattern, try dragging the tines of a dining fork across the page in a wavy line. Move down an inch or two and repeat until the whole page is covered with horizontal wavy lines in groups of four. Now rotate the page 90 degrees and do the same thing. The result is an elegant pattern of crisscrossing lines.
8. When the paper is dry, it will become wrinkled, and not so beautiful. But when you smooth it tightly over a package and tie a ribbon around it, you will be amazed at how beautiful it looks. Enjoy!
