Tape resist art is all about colour, creativity, and celebrating negative space. It’s SO EASY to make a beautiful piece of resist art, with no special painting skills required. It’s a great project to make in the classroom, or at home on a rainy day!
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a small commission which helps us run this website.
Helpful Tips:
What is tape resist art?
Tape resist art is a form of process art where you place removable tape on paper, add paint onto the paper, and then remove the tape. This will reveal negative white space on the artwork. This art project is all about creativity, generally with no specific end product in mind. You can also use resist art to create a specific product, like writing an initial or name in tape before painting around it.
What paint is best for making tape resist art?
We used liquid watercolour paint, mostly because we like the way it looks! You can also use regular watercolour, acrylic, or tempera paint. In fact, you can even make tape resist art using crayons, coloured pencils, or markers!
Which tape is best to use for tape resist art?
To make tape resist art you need to use a tape that isn’t very sticky, and can be removed easily, like painter’s tape or washi tape. Most tape is made to stick permanently to paper, so try testing out your tape in a small area (and getting it wet with paint) before doing a whole painting. Masking tape is probably too sticky to use, but if it’s all you have, you can stick the tape on your t-shirt or jeans before placing it on the paper. This will remove some of the stickiness and allow you to remove it from the paper.
Why is the tape ripping my paper?
You need to wait to remove the tape until the paper is REALLY dry. We had issues with painter’s tape ripping our paper, and it happened when the tape was ripped off too soon. There doesn’t seem to be a 100% guarantee it won’t rip, but for us, the tape came off most easily when our paper was completely dry. Remove one small section of tape at a time, and if the paper starts to rip a bit, try coming at the tape from the opposite angle. This can sometimes stop the paper from ripping completely.
Do I have to use watercolour paper to make resist art?
If you’re using watercolour paint, watercolour paper is your best option. If you’d like to use acrylic or tempera paint, you can use a thick cardstock or cardboard, or even a dollar store canvas.
Tape resist art creates so many opportunities to experiment with different designs and colour mixing. It’s SO FUN to make a tape resist painting, and because it’s such a fast project, you can make a whole pile of them in one afternoon!
Here’s even more fun art project ideas:
DIY Scratch Art
Winter Hat Art Project
“Watercolor” Printing Using Markers
Salt Painted Easter Eggs
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
