Masa Paper Landscape

 Here is a fun and simple way to do a landscape with masa paper.

First, prep the masa paper as usual. For those who are unfamiliar with it, do the following:

1. On the shiny (back) side of the paper, place an X in a corner

2. Wad up the paper in a tight ball.

3. wet the entire sheet

4. Lay it out on absorbent towels...I use puppy training pads

5. Lay in a light wash, letting the colors run together. Be sure to leave some whites.

6. Dry completely.

It should look similar to this below, only not so dark. You want medium to light values of color.

I chose an odd size of paper to force people and myself to think a little differently.

I folded it on what I want to be my horizon line.

At this point you might want to use a small board to support your masa paper, not taped on, just to lay the paper on so that you can move the paper around, spray it, etc. Masa paper is fragile when wet.

With a large soft brush, I wet about 2 " above the horizon line.

Then I painted in sunset colors. I sprayed a little to move the paint around. While that was wet, I refolded on the horizon line, pressed the paint into the bottom half of the picture, to create reflections in the water. 

I dried the sunset. Then I put in some dark along the horizon line for a tree line; refolded;

pressed the wet color into the "water" area for reflection.

I darkened some areas along the horizon line. Refolded.

Now I'm ready to put in hills, islands, and water. 

On dry paper, I put in hills and islands and added their reflections in the same way.

To indicate water, I just put in some horizontal lines in some areas of the water. In some, I lifted the paint,

other places are painted in.

Another fun thing to do using this folding method, is to make vertical creases for tree trunks.

Crease the paper where you want a tree trunk. Wet it. Then use a dropper to drop in either dark paint or some ink. Here is my result. I like the way paint spreads into the wrinkles to look like small branches.

I didn't get a lot of photos from students, but here is one to show a vertical

landscape.

After you have painted as much as you want to on the masa, dry it and mount it on another sheet of watercolor paper (this is where I use my cheaper cuts of paper). You can also mount on mat board, canvas, wood panel that has been gessoed, and other surfaces. I like YES paste to glue on, but Aleene's glue, Matte medium, or other glues are fine. 

When gluing, apply the glue to the support, not the masa.

Gently press the masa to the support.

Put a piece of wax paper over the painting and roll with a brayer to remove air bubbles.

I usually dry it overnight, upside down on some wax paper, with some weight on top. It dries pretty flat that way. 

Other blogs that discuss masa paper are: 

March 2021

March  12, 2020

Sep 13, 2019

Aug 30, 2019