If I asked you to name some of the world’s greatest picture book creators, who would you name?
This simple Eric Carle art project for kids introduces mini makers to the glorious collage technique of one of the world’s greatest picture book creators.
It involves painting tissue paper to create some seriously eye-popping results.
One of my most popular posts in the history of this blog, involved making a wall hanging using this Eric Carle-inspired process.
It felt about time to whip this project out again to create something new.
Gotta love a fun process that leads to glorious products, right?
You can then turn your painted tissue paper into cards, garlands, wall hangings, illustrations…. if you can imagine it, you can create it.

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You will need:

Tissue paper
Acrylic paints
A variety of paintbrushes
Offcuts from cardboard boxes
Cardboard
PVA glue
Straws
Yarn

How to:

You can read about painting tissue paper from Eric Carle himself here.

Or check it out in our video!

Here are some tips from what we learned from the experience.
You will need some thick cardboard to lay under your tissue paper to prevent the paint bleeding through to your work surface.
I pulled apart an old nappy box.

As you apply paint to the tissue paper, lift up your sheet of tissue paper frequently.
This will stop the paper from sticking to the cardboard.

Eric Carle applies his paint in layers.
For example, he works on a red layer and then lets that sheet dry.
Then once dried, he applies another layer of paint.

We went for a process that explored different paintbrushes and strokes.
So we applied all our layers at once, doing different lines and dots.
(You might want to make sure the colours on offer are complementary, in this case.)
We then finished by using IKEA Mala paints, in their excellent squeezy bottles, and squeezed haphazard lines onto the paper.

Once your tissue paper has dried, tear it up into little pieces.
You now have an instant collage box of goodness!

We traced hearts onto cardboard offcuts and cut these out.
Using craft glue, we then covered our cardboard hearts with painted tissue paper.
Trim away any excess overhanging the edges.

Once dried, you can glue your hearts to some thin cardboard to create a homemade card.
Or you could create a garland.
Here’s an excellent garland-making tip that I learned from my friend Shelly at Creating Creatives.
Cut up a straw into small intervals.
Use a hot glue gun to secure these bits of straw to the back of your hearts.
Once the glue has dried, you have an easy way to string yarn through and a super simple way to make a garland!

Want more Eric Carle art and craft projects?

Firefly Craft

Paper Stars Inspired by Eric Carle’s “Draw Me A Star”

Arts and Crafts Inspired by Eric Carle

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Thanks for your support. Happy reading!