One aspect of marbling that haven’t explored much is the use of metallic paints. I had tried some in the past with rather mediocre success and just hadn’t worked with them again. During the class at the Campbell Folk School this fall, I had some very successful pieces with metallic paints.
These two pieces show the use of metallics. In my last marbling session, I decided to explore their use a bit more, trying to match metallics with colors and just seeing how they reacted with other colors.
One of the first things I verified was that metallics just don’t show up well on white paper. They tend to just look like a flat brown, orange or grey. The colors I was playing with were gold, copper, bronze and silver. Here are three white cards that had gold and copper on them.
As you can see, it’s hard to tell where the metallic is. In contrast to this, here are some of the pieces I made with metallic paints using colored card stock.
The papers used for these pieces were black, royal blue, red, and purple. The gold and coppers are much clearer. The amount of shininess depends entirely upon the amount of paint dropped. On some of these there is way too much. One problem that arises with metallic paint is that it granulates very quickly and has to be constantly stirred – without making bubbles! This paint had the added problem that it was old and even more prone to coming out of suspension. Fine for experimenting, but not the best. That is why there are so many little “bits” of paint in the designs. These are especially noticeable on the fine lines of the get-gels. On the purple stone piece, I decided to join rather than fight, so I left it at the stone stage without trying to do any drawing out.
I think I’ll continue working with metallic paint, in moderation. I like the clear crisp colors a bit better, but it does have a place in my marbling palette.
