The Story Behind our Kurrara Designer Papers
For years, as well as working with textiles, I’ve been having fun making my own papers by hand in my studio, layering inks, paints and dyes. I originally created them for my own use, cutting them up for card making, journal pages or mixed media collages, but as I improved my designs, I fell in love with them and couldn’t bear to cut them up! So they sat in my cupboard, growing into a beautiful, but unused collection. That’s when my photographer husband had the idea that changed everything – what if we digitise them?
That’s exactly how my designer series art papers came to life.
Limited use has been made of computers, simply to ensure that you receive the best representation of the original artwork and that the high quality of the product is maintained throughout. All of our designs are reproduced in A4 size(210mm x 297mm) at 300 dpi and jpeg graphics format (.jpg files).
Each design-set contains ten separate designs and there are also two free designs available through the store for you to download in advance, so that you can check the quality before making any purchases. There are currently six separate categories of designs available in the store, with each category representing the six different techniques that have been used to produce the designs. Each of these is outlined in more detail below.
Tina Whiteley
Distress Inks
Hand-Painted Fabric
Hand-Painted Fabric
These papers are made using Distress Sprays, Oxide Sprays and Mica Spritzers on a variety of surfaces like cardstock, vellum and rice paper. I layer colours, let them blend, then add water to create natural drips and blooms. Heat setting brings out surprising textures and mica gives a soft sparkle. The result is a rich, multi-dimensional background full of artistic energy.
Hand-Painted Fabric
Hand-Painted Fabric
Hand-Painted Fabric
I begin by dyeing fabric with Liquid Radiance paints, using folding, scrunching and resist techniques to build layered designs. After several days of development, each piece is washed and ironed to reveal intricate patterns.
Eco Dyed
Hand-Painted Fabric
Hand-Painted Paper
I use fresh flowers and leaves from the garden, arranging them carefully on various types of paper. These are layered and gently steamed between terracotta tiles, allowing the natural pigments to transfer and interact. The process creates beautifully organic, earthy designs that capture the detail and softness of real plants -- each one a unique, sustainable piece of art.
Hand-Painted Paper
Hand-Painted Paper
Hand-Painted Paper
While working with dyed fabrics, I blot excess colour onto various papers -- tissue, cartridge or watercolour. These papers absorb dyes unpredictably, creating ghost prints, splashes and soft bleeds. It's a free-flowing process where colour goes where it wants and the paper's texture does the rest.
Mixed Media
Hand-Painted Paper
Mixed Media
This is my most experimental process, where I work with gel plates, layering acrylics, watercolours, pastels, alcohol inks, stencils and foiling. I also use large cartridge sheets to catch excess paint, brayer strokes and brush marks, gradually building up spontaneous, abstract papers with rich colour and texture. Each piece is a playful expression, perfect for collage, journaling or bold backgrounds.
Textures
Hand-Painted Paper
Mixed Media
My textured papers start on the gel plate, where I apply layers of acrylic paint and mediums in varying thicknesses. I use mark-making tools, found objects and even crackle mediums to create tactile surface detail. Each piece is pulled by hand, capturing the texture and movement in that moment.
The Finishing Touches
Once the papers and fabrics have been created, the final part of the process is to digitize them ready for packaging into their individual design sets for the on-line store.
The papers and fabrics are photographed under controlled conditions in the studio, adjusted for white-balance and colour-corrected, as necessary, to match the original artwork as closely as possible, using Lightroom and Photoshop, before being cropped and saved as A4, 300 dpi, jpeg files.
For the textured papers, one additional step, before the final cropping is carried out, is to blend the images with our own collection of textures, such as stone, wood grain, rust, bark or weathered walls. This results in richly layered digital papers that feel tangible, worn and full of history -- perfect for adding depth to your creative projects.
Digital Papers Now Available
Check out the range of my digital papers for use in all your art and craft projects. Visit the on-line store today.