TUTORIAL: Paint on Book Pages
If you love exploring different mediums for your art, then this tutorial is for you! In this article, we will explore the art of transforming old book pages into beautiful, vintage illustrations using watercolors and fine liners.
By painting on book pages, we’ll breathe new life into forgotten stories and create unique, one-of-a-kind artwork.
Required Art Supplies
These are the art supplies I used to create the artworks on book pages.
- Schmincke Akademie Watercolor Set: these are by far my favourite watercolors. The colours are vibrant and spread evenly on paper. They’re also slightly cheaper than the Horadam set, but would still be considered of professional quality.
- Derwent Graphic Drawing Pencils: I used the HB one so it doesn’t get too messy.
- Micron fineliners: I use black and red fineliners. These are permanent fineliners with archival ink. I’ve been using these since the start of my art journey and I love them!
- Winsor & Newton Drawing Ink: this is another product I’ll swear by. I use the white one for my artworks.
- Da Vinci brushes: these allow for good control, as they are synthetic, and are quite resistant.
- Box cutter: this is what you’ll use to cut pages out of the book.
As for the book, I used one I bought one at a flea market. I went for one which had a “torn out” and antique look.
Step 1: Get your Book Pages Ready
Using a thin box cutter, cut the book page out of the book you’ve selected for your artwork. Be careful to cut it as close to the edge as possible.
Get familiar with the binding of the book you’re extracting the page from in order to cut it and prevent it from tearing your page.
Step 2: Draw the Outline
Using a HB pencil, do a light drawing of the subject you’d like to paint on the book page.
Be careful not to be too heavy-handed during this operation as pages of a book are really thin and delicate.
You also want the outline to just be barely visible to you as it won’t show through the final artwork.
Step 3: Add Lighter Tones
Now it’s time to add the lighter tones of your subject. As we’re using watercolors, we want to go from light to dark, as the opposite would be impossible, due to their transparency.
Bear in mind that the beige colours of the book page will add on to the colours you’re adding to the paper, so these will have an impact on the final colours.
Therefore, you can’t expect the colours to be as vibrant and saturated as they would be if you painted on top of white paper.
Step 4: Add Darker Tones
Use less diluted watercolours, to add the darker tones to your picture. Look out for shadows and create contrast. This is what will make your picture really pop out!
Step 5: Add White Ink
The only way to add white to a vintage book page is to use something more opaque than watercolours. I’m using white ink by Winsor & Newton, as shown in the image, which has always worked really well for me.
Add white ink to the white areas that make up our subject. You can always paint on top of them later. In fact, painting above these areas will result in more vibrant colours than when doing so directly on the page, so be wary of this.
Step 6: Final Details!
Add a few more watercolour paint to the picture until you’re happy with the colours of your picture.
The last step is to use a fine liner (such as a 0.1 Micron pen by Sakura) to add details.
These will really bring your image to life! As at the beginning, be very delicate and gentle with your fineliner, as it might pierce the page.
…that’s it! If you are interested in buying any of my art pieces, feel free to contact me. Prices range between 30 and 50 USD and these are truly unique pieces 🙂
I’m working on a walk-through video of these types of artwork for YouTube. Stay tuned!
This post may contain affiliate links which means I earn an affiliate commission for qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Thanks for the support!
