Marbling works on the basis that oil and water don’t mix. A shallow tray or tub is filled with water and various kinds of paint colours are carefully splattered onto the surface of water. Various additives or surfactant chemicals are used to help float the colours.
MATERIALS YOU NEED:
- Card paper, sketch paper, handmade paper
- Oil colours and Linseed oil / Enamel paints and Turpentine
- Shallow tray or tub
- Containers to mix colour
- Paint brush
- Water colours
- Toothpicks and Straws
- Newspaper and Pegs
- Oil colour is mix with linseed oil to make it thin enough that it won’t sink in the bottom of the tub when dropped in and thick enough so it doesn’t spread too quickly across the paste surface.
- Drop blobs of thinned paint onto the water in the tub.
- Swirl them around with a toothpick and try different patterns.
- A sheet of paper is then carefully laid onto the water surface to capture the floating pattern.
- Lift it off before it gets soggy, it will lift your paint pattern with it.
- Then, lay it aside to dry or peg it on a string line somewhere.
- You can get different effect by using different tools, swirling the colours and by using various colours one after the other.
- For creating any other blank shape in the painting , cut out that shape of paper , place it on the plain water of tub and spread the colours onto water surface without colouring the white shape of paper and take out the marble pattern on the sheet of paper as described earlier.
- To create the sky or water effect apply water colour with brush or enhance the scene of the painting as you wish.
- Marbled papers can be used for cards, gift tag, bookmark, to notebook cover etc. 3D objects like eggshells, candles or jars can be decorated by marbling.
