Tissue Paper Stained Glass

Time: 20 minutes

What you need:

• Clear contact paper

• Construction paper

• Different colored tissue paper

  
  

What you do:

1. Cut the tissue paper and construction paper into different shapes.

2. Place the tissue paper and construction paper onto the contact paper.

3. Experiment with overlapping the paper and colors to make new shapes and colors.

4. Once you're finished laying the paper pieces down, take the covering you peeled off the contact paper and stick it to the design.

5. Take your finished art piece and place it up against a window to see the colors you created.

Questions to ask:

1. What happened when you overlapped some of the colors?

2. How does your design change when bright light is shining through it?

What's the science:

Tissue paper is translucent, which means it lets some light pass through, but not all of it. Sunlight is made up of a mixture of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. As light passes through the colorful tissue paper, the paper absorbs the colors that don't match its own color, allowing only certain wavelengths to pass through. The colors that do pass through create the colorful light you see.