My Napkin Art is Disappearing! 3 Easy Ways to Recover Images

Do you ever run into your napkin art disappearing on your art journal pages? You may start with a beautiful background that would be perfect for napkins, but then your images disappear when you apply them! This is frustrating and can be very disappointing. But your project isn’t ruined! There are several ways that you can recover your disappearing napkin images on your art journal projects.

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Why is my Napkin Art Disappearing?

Napkin art is a beautiful addition to any art journal page as the napkin images have beautiful color and detail. If you’re uncomfortable with drawing they are an easy way to add imagery to your art journal pages.

To use napkins in your art journal, remove the two white layers from the napkin. This will leave you with a colorful focal image.

This is where the problem can come in when you want to apply the image to your art journal page. Because of the napkin’s semi-translucent nature, you’re left with a thin image. When you add matte medium, the napkin can sometimes disappear on a darker background.   

If you’re new to napkins, check out this article for the step-by-step directions for adding napkin art to any project.  

How to Prevent Napkin Art Disappearing on a Journal Page

So how do we solve this problem of napkin art disappearing on your journal page or project? You’ve created a beautiful background and added an image that has now disappeared or is unrecognizable. At this point, you can’t remove it from the page. You may feel like your page is ruined. But it is possible to recover your image.

Choosing the Right Napkin for your Art Journal

Before I share about recovering your napkin art images, let’s talk about what to look for in a napkin so that you don’t have this problem in the first place.

How Much Contrast Does the Napkin Have?

Does it have strong colors and a dark border to the image? Does it have a lot of white or have a very watercolor finish to the piece?

Any napkin with a lot of white in the design tends to disappear onto the page when you add the matte medium. The positive of the white disappearing means that you don’t need to spend so much time carefully cutting out the image to use on your page. But if your napkin has pale colors, this means that you need to use a very light colored or white background, otherwise the image will disappear.

Choosing Contrasting Napkins

Choose napkins with dark, contrasting colors or strong black borders. If you choose to add the napkin to a more colorful or busier background, this prevents the color from disappearing. The strong black outlines and contrasting details will stand out, even on a dark background. If you find them too bold, you can always adjust them when added to your art journal page. But at least you have a contrasting image to start with.

It’s important that before we get too excited about a particular image. Evaluate it and determine how you may need to adjust your background to make it work on your journal page.

Recovering Disappearing Napkin Images

If you’ve already added your napkin art to the page, how do you fix it? What can you do to recover those soft images and help them pop on the page?

In the art journal page that I’m demonstrating on this week, I added in a vibrant red poppy napkin to a dark background that included areas of black paint. You can see that I ended up with very dark, disappearing images that you can’t really make out clearly. Here’s my favourite techniques that I use when my napkin art has gone sideways.

Adding a Second Layer of Napkin

The nice thing about napkins is that the unfolded napkin leaves you with a copy of the image, or sometimes multiple images, depending on how the napkin is printed.

One easy way to help the images pop is to carefully line up the same image on top of the previous image and add it with a layer of matte medium. As this makes the image more opaque and less translucent, it’s often enough to recover your napkin art on your art journal page.

Adding the Napkin on White Paper

An alternative to this, especially if you don’t feel confident to line up the image properly, is to just add the same image on a piece of white paper with matte medium. Once dry, you can fussy cut out the image. Then add it on top of where the previous image was, saving your page.

What’s nice about this technique is that it can help you add dimension to your art journal page. You can use 3D foam squares or other adhesives to separate the image from the background.  It is more work cutting out the image, but you will end up with a bright and contrasting image on your page.

Paint Over the Napkin with White Paint

If I find the image is really dark on the surface and I don’t think the layering technique will be successful, I add a layer of watered-down white paint on top of the napkin image. Paint within the image carefully only adding paint to the flower image. By staying within the lines, you are now creating a light base in which to apply another napkin image.

Once the paint is dry, use a copy of the image from another napkin and line it up on top of where the last image was applied. Now when you add the matte medium, you will notice that the flower is highly contrasted and the image pops on the page.

By adjusting the intensity of the white paint by either having a thin wash or a opaque wash, you can adjust how bright your image is on the page.  

Glazing with Paint Creating Highlights and Shadows

If your napkin art hasn’t completely disappeared on the page, but isn’t as dynamic as you’d like, try using paint glazing to help it contrast from the background.

Add Bold Colors and Highlights

If you’ve found that the color is desaturated and you don’t like how it looks on your page, try adding a wash of lighter or bolder color. Use a bit of acrylic paint and a lot of water. This will thin out the paint so that it doesn’t obliterate all the details on your art journal page. Instead, it will brighten the dark areas creating more contrast.

To add highlights, I like to use Liquitex Iridescent medium. It’s a clear medium with sparkle in it and it creates beautiful highlights and a bit of shine to any piece.

You can also use pastel or metallic paint that has been very watered down to create a similar effect. The goal isn’t to obliterate the art and detail on the napkins, it’s just helping to create more color and contrast.

Add Negative Painting

Another way to help the focal image is to paint the area around it, this technique is called negative painting. When you’re negative painting, you’re painting around the object, not the object itself.

When working with disappearing napkin art, it’s leaving the image as is, but darkening or lightening the area around the image to create more contrast. You can do this with acrylic paint, but I like using the Stabilo All pencil for adding shadows around napkins. The Stabilo All Pencil is one of my favorites. It can write on any surface and is water soluble. When wetted with water it can create dark color that can be blended out onto the surface.

Any Questions?

Any questions about how to recover napkin art that’s disappearing? Napkins are great fun, but it can be really frustrating to have your napkin art disappear on to your page. I hope that this has given you some ideas on how to get new life on a possibly “ruined” project!

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