Kyra Teis

Imagining Stories

Technique

Children’s Book Illustrations in Paper Collage

I make my illustrations using a technique called paper collage. "Collage" means to paste many separate pieces of something onto a common surface. You may have made a collage using photos of friends or other special objects. You can put almost anything into a collage - pretty autumn leaves, fabric, mementos, you name it!

For my illustrations, I only use paper that has been blotted or splattered with paint. The blotting and splattering creates really beautiful and complex colors and textures. I think they deepen the visual interest of my illustrations in a nice way. I learned this technique from my father, Dan Teis, who was a contemporary artist.

Even though we use the same technique, our artwork looks very different...

Blotting the Paper

When I begin a book project, I often have to create a new batch of my special papers. First I decide on my "palette." This is the range of colors that will show up in the illustrations.

Color is an important way of communicating a particular feeling in a book. For instance, Daughters of Eve takes place in Biblical times. I wanted to use natural earth tones - greens, rusts, grays and yellows - to communicate a time period in which many people lived in rustic houses, used vegetable dyes for their clothing, and worked the land.

Another example is my book, Mama Agua, which takes place in the Caribbean. When I went there, I was astounded by the bright color of the flowers, the houses, and the aqua-blue water. Bright pinks, blues, and oranges will be the color palette for this book.

Here I am in my studio getting ready to create some papers.

Once I decide on the color palette, I get busy with my paints. I use acrylic paint which is opaque (you can't see through it) and layers nicely. I have a medium-sized canvas that I swathe paint onto with a big brush.

Next, I lay a piece of paper on top of the wet paint. I use many different kinds of paper - newspapers, plain white paper, and sometimes even old junk mail. It's fun to turn the papers over years later and see what they used to be!

When I lift the paper up, it has blotted up the wet paint. The textures depend on how wet or thick the paint was. If I use a lot of water with the paint, I get very drippy, transparent textures. When my paint is thick, the texture comes out like the one here. You can see that I previously blotted a tan color on this paper before the red. This paper may accumulate 4 or more layers of paint before I call it "finished."

The last step in the process is laying the paper out to dry. Usually I let a paper dry before applying another layer of paint, but sometimes wet-on-wet paint makes a beautiful swirly texture. I have to take a break when I run out of space on my studio floor. Here you can see the beginnings of papers I made for Mama Agua.

My artwork:

My father’s artwork: