Tag Archives: how to

May 15, 2016 · 12:57 pm

Marbling on Paper: Step by Step

At my Open Studio in April, a friend took numerous photos while I was marbling. I’m posting them without much comment to create step-by-step documentation of the entire process of marbling.

Some of the steps that have been left out are putting alum on the paper, mixing the carrageenan and skimming or cleaning the size. You can find pictures of all of these operations in my previous blogs, especially this one.

6 Comments

Filed under Marbled Paper

Tagged as , ,

March 24, 2016 · 1:42 pm

Marbling Workshop on April 22, 2016

I will be teaching a basic, one-day workshop in marbling on paper on Friday, April 22nd from 9 am to 3 pm at my studio. I’ve had a few requests for this, so am finally getting my act together. I hope you’ll join us in the fun.  This is a great opportunity to dabble in a new art form, refresh your skills and produce wonderful papers to use in collages, on greeting cards, or other paper arts.

The workshop will include:

the preparation of paper with alum
preparation of acrylic paint for marbling
preparing the carrageenan or size
getting the paint to float on the size
manipulating the paint (the FUN part)
basic marbling patterns (stone, get-gel, nonpareil, plus more if time permits)
laying down paper to transfer the paint
washing and drying paper
time permitting, I’ll also demonstrate how to make low-cost marbling tools

Everyone will have bunches of beautiful paper to take home, even after just one day.  For those who become enamored with the art, want to try just one more or learn more patterns, I will have “Open Studio” days after the workshop.  On these days, you can come back and continue marbling and creating beautiful papers.  You can even try out some “over-marbling” with papers produced on Friday.  There won’t be any formal instruction, but I’ll be there to answer questions, provide help and offer suggestions. These open studio days will continue until the carrageenan or the paints give up.

This workshop is being offered through the Arts Center of Yates County.  Here is their course description:

Paper Marbling with Nancy Langford                                            Friday, April 22nd      9 am – 3 pm               Losing Her Marbles Studio
Learn the basics of creating amazing designs through marbling – an ancient method of creating designs by floating inks or paints on an aqueous solution and then transferring the design to paper, cloth or other media.  This workshop will work on preparing paper and acrylic paints for marbling, creating basic patterns and transferring that design to paper.  No previous experience necessary!  Nancy will also have open studio hours over the weekend to enable students to continue to practice and create.

Please call 315-536-8226 to register or send an email to artscenter@ycac.org

$48 members, $60 not-yet-members for Friday workshop  + $25 materials / studio fee per day 

For further information please contact Nancy using the form below.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 6, 2016 · 5:28 pm

Ten by Two: making a lot of gift notepads

Just before Thanksgiving I received a request to make some notepads for a customer to use as gifts.  She wanted ten sets of notepad covers containing a medium-size and small-size in coordinating colors. I have been making these notepads is four sizes from portfolio for an 8.5″ x 12″ pad to a mini, memo sized (1.5″ x 4″) pad. You can see all sizes here.  This request was challenging just because of the number of items, but the time frame made it even more complicated as I was planning a two-week trip to my son’s at Thanksgiving!

I rarely work on more than four or five pieces at a time just because parts tend to wander and get mixed up.  At least this time all the basic pieces would be the same size, but keeping tracking of forty different papers was a challenge!  Before leaving for vacation I was able to cut all the Davey board covers (outside) and mat board pieces (inside) and cover the inside panels.  This blog will go through many of the steps I took on this project with illustrations when I remembered the camera.

First step, and the most fun and frustrating, was choosing all the papers to be used.  The customer wanted each set to be coordinated and I didn’t want any to use the same papers.  Fortunately, the largest size I was making was for a 6″ x 9″ pad and that gave me more choices of paper.  When I make the portfolio size (8.5″x 12″) I’m very limited as the inside needs two pieces of paper that are roughly 8″ wide by 13″ tall. Since most of my hand-marbled paper is 14″x 17″, it’s tight and the sheet has to be perfect.  I don’t have any photos, but you can imagine me sorting through stacks of paper trying to find four that went together.  I was generally looking for two printed and two marbled.  To keep all my selection straight, I clipped all the matching sheets together with notes on the backs with a number 1 through 20, whether it was large or small and inside or outside.  This is much more organized than I usually am, but with 40 pieces of paper staring at me, I really needed it.  Cutting the boards took a whole day, but at least they were the same size, so didn’t have to be marked.

Stacks of cut Davey board for covers

Stacks of cut Davey board for covers

I decided to make the inside panels first so cut all that paper first before starting gluing out anything.  Once the papers were cut, I started the gluing out process using the mat board I’d already cut.

At this point I was off for Thanksgiving.  I tried to think how I could take some of the work with me, but it was just too complicated. When I came home, I had two weeks to finish everything.  I immediately started on the outside covers.  I had already cut the boards and chosen the paper, so first task was to pick the bookcloth.  This was when I realized that I’d found the element that would tie the sets together. Each set would have matching spines and I’d use each bookcloth on only one set. The bookcloth is next to all four papers, so the choice had to work with all.  By this time all four inside panels were in ten zipper bags and clipped to the larger outside papers. As I chose the bookcloth, a small piece was slipped into the bags.  Sounds easy, but I was swapping pieces in and out as I found better matches.  At times it seemed like total chaos.

All the spines were were attached to the boards a strip was glued into the center of the spine to stiffen it. Next step was to cut all the outside cover papers to size and glue them onto the covers. To finish the covers, I glued narrow strips of bookcloth to the outside edges of the boards.  This isn’t necessary, but I feel it makes a longer wearing edge than the paper alone and I want these notepads to be used and to last.

Next, adding the insides to the outsides, right? Not quite. The writing pad has to be held in place. I use a strap of heavy paper or cardstock to secure the pad and a foot pocket to keep it in place on the right side. On the left side, I make a pocket either on the side or bottom to hold a few extra sheets of paper. Placement of the pocket depends on the design of the paper, the size of the paper and my mood.  First step, as usual, is matching a heavy paper to the pieces already made. The paper is then cut and folded individually, matching the exact size and shape of its covers.

Completed notepads! All finished and delivered on time.

This entire project was really fun, although frustrating at times. It was a challenge to find just the right papers, but in the end I’m very pleased with the results.

I always have notebooks and portfolios for sale on Etsy. If you need different colors or amounts than are available, just send a message: 

or leave a comment here.

1 Comment

Filed under Notebooks

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 23, 2015 · 10:43 am

Update on “How to Marble Paper” page

Three years age I wrote a “How to Marble Paper” page. Since then I have had lots of questions and and I have changed several of my methods. I am currently updating the page. Here’s the first part. You can see the whole thing HERE.

Update to How to Marble

The most frequent questions I am asked are about the basic physical components of marbling – alum, carrageenan, paint and paper.  I haven’t changed the first two at all. Marbling carrageenan (not the food variety) mixed at 2.5 Tablespoons per Gallon of water (I use distilled, bottled) and marbling alum (again, not the food kind) mixed at 1 to 2 teaspoons per cup of water. I mix my alum a bit stronger than some recommendations just because I find it works better for me. The carrageenan is mixed in a high-speed blender and allowed to sit overnight.  I usually mix the alum at the same time just because it’s one less step to do in the morning! The alum just needs to be stirred a bit to dissolve.

Paint
Paints can be tricky and you need to be willing to play a bit to find the brand and type that suits you purposes best. I have been converted to Golden’s Fluid Arcylics. I think they are easier to balance, have great pigment integration and provide intense colors. However, like all paint, they can be highly individual in the way you mix them. I start my paints with 1 part paint to about  1/2 part water and add water gradually to find the right balance. Colors vary a lot – blues & greens need more water, reds and yellows need less.  Unlike the paints I used to use, even the toughest of the Golden colors needs only 20 to 30 stirs to create a good suspension and most need way less.  I took a class where the paints had been pre-mixed and even though they were the same base paint that I use all the time, the water ratios were very different and it took a few papers for me to adjust my style to the paint. The moral is play, test, try and play some more until you find what suits you and how you plan to use your paper.

I use a piece of dowel to mix the paint.  It’s tempting to just use the eyedropper, but not wise.  I used to use plastic spoons, but find that the dowel provides a better surface for reintegrating pigment that has fallen out of suspension. Some paints, especially yellows and reds, rarely fall, but blues and ultramarines have to be stirred frequently.  Metallics need stirring before almost every drop and the dowel provides a pestle-like action that works well. I much prefer using cups to leaving the paint in the bottles. Bottles will develop a thick sludge of pigment on the bottom, but with the cups you can see and control the sludge formation. I’ve used both snap lid and twist on cups and prefer the twist closure. It gives a tighter seal and avoids the splash episodes when I try to open a stuck snap-on lid! You do have to take care that the twist is fully sealed if you are leaving the paint for any period of time.

Paper

What paper you use depends entirely on what you plan to do with your marbled paper.  Always keep end use in mind.  Most of my paper ends up in my books; that’s why I started marbling in the first place.  Therefore, I use a lot of drawing weight paper (70-80lbs, 100 – 130gsm). I also use a lot of card stock (65lb., 167 gsm.) for cards and for some book uses, but it is too heavy for endpapers.  I have some beautifully marbled sheets of very heavy weight paper and even watercolor paper (400 lb.) that I love, but have yet to figure out what to do with them.  Many marblers love Texoprint paper, but I am not a fan, partially because I don’t like the way it pastes down.  I have tried marbling everything from paper napkins to mat board. So try, experiment, play!  If you are just beginning, I suggest either a 70lb. drawing paper or card stock as they are both easy to handle and have many uses.

Fun sources of marbling paper are everywhere – discarded books, maps, old magazines, sheet music,  junk mail, community flyers.  Just look around.  Slick and glossy papers are harder to marble since both the alum and paint tend to slide off, but you can have fun trying!

…. Continued on THIS PAGE

 

11 Comments

Filed under Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 26, 2015 · 3:55 pm

Minimalist Marbling

When I marble I usually have a dozen or more colors going by the third day.  I love color and I just keep adding another shade of blue or an accent of yellow.  For my last marbling session, I decided to try something completely different.  I had done some monochrome marbling before, but I had used four or five different variations – cobalt blue, Prussian blue, cyan, ultramarine blue etc. This time I used just one color plus black and white, or in a few cases, brown and white. I cheated a bit with the blue and used Cerulean blue, deep and Cerulean blue, chrome, but otherwise there was just one color.

It’s easy to get lots of shades in marbling because the paint spreads across the surface of the carrageenan and the more it spreads, the lighter it is.  As more and more paint is dropped, it spreads less and less. The first paint dropped gets compressed and so gets darker.

Some pictures of my fun time:

Cleaning up is much easier when I only use three colors!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 29, 2015 · 7:49 am

Designing Boxes

I haven’t blogged in over a month, so it’s about time.  This winter has been unusual in many ways – first, all the snow!  Yes, I’m in an area that gets a lot of snow normally, but this winter has been especially persistent with neither the cold nor the snow ever letting up.  It’s almost April and I still have half my yard covered with snow.  It’s not from a sudden snow, but has been there since January. There’s still a high berm of snow around the driveway from plowing and two foot drifts in places out back.  One hopeful sign is that I’ve seen some snowdrops poking through.  They are not blooming yet, but soon.  Of course they usually bloom in February. Enough about the weather.

I occasionally have people ask if I can make them a special book or marble paper in specific colors.  I take these requests with mixed emotions. It’s fun having the challenge of working to someone else’s vision, but there’s the stress of knowing it could be an epic fail, like the carrageenan disaster I had. In February, I had four special requests and two of them involved making preservation boxes. To have them all come at once was unusual and messed up my hibernation plans. Everything was finished on time, but it took some juggling.

First request was for a wedding guest book with an engraved plate on the cover and endpapers to match the wedding colors.  We added a preservation box for the book and then complicated the box by adding a drawer to keep the printed ephemera from the wedding. Here’s a brief look at the process.

The drawer had to be larger than the book due to the size of the invitation, so I used the extra space on top to provide a place for a pen. All of the measurements have to be exact so that the contents are protected and won’t move around as the box is handled. I cut the binder’s board first, but find I often have to make slight adjustments as I’m working. Since the tolerances are small, I always am amazed that everything fits perfectly at the end.

The second request was for a preservation box to act as a portfolio for a student’s artwork.  This was a challenge as the colors and feel of the box had to complement work that I hadn’t seen and fit smoothly into someone else’s artistic vision. Plus there was time pressure.

We went through many different designs and finally settled on the combination of a black outside, gray sides, black and white paste paper interior and lined with a black and white photo.

The easiest special I did was from a customer who had bought several of my jotters in the past.  She wanted the same thing in a larger size to use in a sketching class.  I thought it was a fun idea and made some extras for sale on Etsy and at the Arts Center of Yates County.

The sketchers only have ten pages so they are perfect for day trips or to keep in a car or purse.  They are easier to organize than loose sheets of paper and keep sketches done at the same time together. I’ve used a nice drawing weight paper for the pages, so I hope people like them.

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Boxes and Towers

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

January 1, 2015 · 4:15 pm

Interesting Carrageenan Disaster

I’ve been marbling on a regular basis for seven or eight years now and I’ve never had problems with my carrageenan until last summer. Problems with paint, with paper, with alum, but I didn’t even think about the carrageenan; it was always reliable. Last summer I had minor problems with it starting to break down after only a day or two, but I blamed it on the heat and moved on.  Last week, I finally had time for my first marbling session in months and I was already to go when I hit a real stopper.

It went like this.  The night before, I set up my marbling space, hung my drying lines, chose my paints, mixed the alum and mixed the carrageenan, just as I always do.  Two and a half Tbsp. to a gallon of water, two gallons in all.  I use distilled water because I have an incredible amount of stuff – iron, calcium, sulfur, and more – in my well water.  As usual, I used the same blender to mix it and poured it into my marbling tray to sit overnight.

The next morning, I alummed some paper, mixed my paints and was ready to go. As soon as I skimmed the carrageenan, I could tell something was different. It was much thicker than it should have been and was very uneven. Using a stylus and my rake, I swirled them through the tray to try to even up the liquid.  I decided to throw some paint to see what would happen and this is what I got:

I rather like the wildness in the first two pieces, but it’s not exactly marbling!  As you might imagine, I was getting upset as skimming and stirring didn’t seem to help. Slowly I realized that there were big lumps of carrageenan throughout the tray and that was the problem. I thought about putting the carrageenan through the blender again or just tossing this batch and starting fresh the next day.  I tried breaking the lumps with the rakes and that helped and I found that dragging the comb from the top of the tray to the bottom caught the lumps in the tines, so I started straining out the lumps and bit by bit the carrageenan became smoother and smoother.

As I got rid of the lumps, marbling improved, but it was still very iffy.  I was able to pull some pretty good pieces, but I was still straining lumps out after every skim.  That created a problem of its own.  It was thinning out the remaining carrageenan and, instead of crisp marbling edges, I was getting very soft fuzzy borders.  I did finish up that day, but that night I took out an old packet of carrageenan from a different source and mixed a new batch for the next morning.

I still don’t really know why this disaster occurred.  It could have been that I lost count and added an extra Tsbp. It could have been mixed too little or too much. It could have been due to cold temperatures that night. It could have been some contamination in the carrageenan powder.  I just don’t know, but it was very frustrating!

Next morning I had brand new carrageenan and a brand new tray and marbling went well. In fact things were going so well that I kept on for another three days and I had lots of fun playing with overmarbling, ripples and got back in touch with marbling just for fun. Lots of pictures of my play.

In total I had almost 100 pieces – good, bad and indifferent – by the end of the session.

Now, I want to do it again!

But, before that, I have to have a bunch of plumbing replaced right over my work area.

NOTE:  Clear acrylic frames come in many sizes and make great, inexpensive marbling trays. Just remember to test how well they hold water before using.  If they leak, plumber’s Goop or other sealant will seal the edges.

18 Comments

Filed under Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

September 20, 2014 · 3:36 pm

Design Decisions = Fun and Frustration

During the last week or so, I’ve been mulling over what to do with all the metal goodies

I have. If you don’t remember, this is the pile.

DSCN0001

I’m concerned about adhering anything, leather, cloth, tapes, etc., to the metal as it will need a strong bonding agent.  The ability of any material to withstand constant contact with metal may be another problem. For example, in a Coptic binding, how quickly will the metal cut through the binding thread? I’ve smoothed and rounded the edges and corners, but will it be enough? Will I have to cover the edges with a softer material?  So far lots of questions, no answers. This is what I have planned out, now to try to find out what will work.

These two have already been finished.  The book cover was made by creating a “sandwich” of two pieces of binders’ board with the copper plate in the middle.  The center of the top board was cut out, exposing the copper. This is one of the easiest and most secure methods of using metal, but it is essentially just decorative, not an integral part of the structure of the book. For the small notepad, I glued the metal directly to the leather spine using a metal adhesive. There were remnants of adhesive webbing on the reverse of this aluminium, so I just used PVA on the marbled paper.  This is a prototype and it will take some testing in use to see if the leather needs reinforcing or if other adhesives are needed.  I decided to do this one as simply as possible to test the strength of the bonding.

Now for what’s in planning stages:

These two lovely brass plates were originally intended to be front and back covers, but while playing, I changed my mind. I tried them with a dark brown leather, but much preferred the look against a black Italian bookcloth.  Sam Castner textured these for me and I really like the edges, so instead of making a sandwich as I did for the copper, I’m going to inset one into a book cover.  To inset, I’ll carve a piece out of the top board just slightly larger than the brass. The boards are then covered with bookcloth, which is pressed into the depression, and the brass is adhered as the final step.  The green decorative paper will be used for endpapers and the lacy tissue makes section dividers.  The other brass piece will be inset into a clamshell box that will be made to fit the finished book.

Although I don’t care for Coptic bindings in general, I thought I would try at least one and the holes were punched on these plates for Coptic sewing.  I’ve added a leather lacing just for decoration.  I’m going to sew this with a heavy waxed thread, but really expect the metal to cut through it.  It’s worth trying on a prototype anyway.  Sewing on cords that are laced into the cover will probably be a better technique.

I’m completely undecided about this last piece.  I love the copper plates and want to use them as the boards for a book, but I have no clue as to how I’ll construct the spine.  At the moment, I’m thinking about a leather covering over wrapped cords. Maybe using rawhide or leather thongs for the cords and lacing them into the copper.  The holes in the copper can be used structurally or just for decoration.  They could be covered with leather or bookcloth or left exposed. Not sure of anything, just know I love this copper and will have to find an appropriate venue for it.

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Craft design

Tagged as , , , , , ,

September 2, 2014 · 4:02 pm

Scrapbook Construction

In the past few years, several people have asked if they could use my blank books as  scrapbooks.  My answer has always been an emphatic, “No!” Inserting extra thickness into any tightly bound book will sooner or later break the spine. With a Coptic or long-stitch binding there is a bit of leeway, but as soon as the boards or covers move beyond being parallel, the hinges are put under stress and will break.

The goal in building this type of book is to accommodate extra thickness between the pages while using a strong binding structure that will support extra weight.  I, personally, don’t like making scrapbooks: they tend to be large and I like small. The pages are difficult to sew and the endpapers can be a pain, I am documenting my progress on the page “Building a Scrapbook” if you are interested in the nitty gritty.  I’m still working on the books and will be updating the page as I progress.

On another matter entirely, I recently stopped by Sam Castner’s workshop and came away with some fabulous ideas and these:DSCN0001

Now I have to get to work designing and making!

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Craft design

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

August 25, 2014 · 11:48 am

Problem Encounters of the Marbling Kind

One of the most satisfying experiences I have when I’m marbling is hanging a finished sheet and realizing it is perfect.  It doesn’t happen as frequently as I’d like, but it does happen.  There are so many things that can go wrong and so many variants that sometimes it’s hard to figure out where the problem occurred. After all the papers are dry at the end of a marbling session, the first thing I do is to sort my papers into piles – saleable,  usable, disaster and that rarity, perfect.

For my own clarification and maybe to help new marblers, I am going to try to look at the places where marbling can go wrong and maybe how to fix it. This will probably take several blogs and may be interspersed with other commentary.

PAPER
First comes the paper. You can marble almost any kind of paper, but the results will vary. I’ve only had two total disasters. The first was a very slick brochure, both the alum and paint tended to slide off . Some color did stick, but it was very messy.  Slick magazine pages are very iffy, they might work, but they might not. The second wipeout was a heavy “cloth-like” paper napkin.  It lay down on the tray well, but just wasn’t strong enough to hold the paint.  When I lifted it from the marbling tray, it shredded.

Different weight papers may require slightly different techniques. I tend to catch bubbles on heavier papers because they don’t roll down as smoothly. If I switch paper weights, I find I have problems with the first ones until I get into the right rhythm. With anything that doesn’t bend, like mat board, I dunk the starting corner to keep the rest going smoothly. Antique paper, like pages from 19th century books, can be marbled if you handle it gently. It may need to be laid flat on a towel to dry, rather than being hung. Hanging weak paper, of any age, may tear the corners. Although I always rinse my marbling before hanging, I’ve found that a residue of carrageenan remains on the paper  which seems to strengthen old paper. Another quirk I’ve noticed is that slightly acidic paper seems to produce brighter and crisper marbling. Almost all the the new paper I buy is acid-free, but I have stashes of print and watercolor paper that belonged to my Mother and they all have some acid content, as do the maps and book pages I use.

For my standard marbling, I use Strathmore or Canson drawing paper. For use in my books, I try to stay within the 90gsm to 120gsm range.  For cards, I use standard card stock.  I have some lovely pieces on very heavy weight paper, but haven’t figured out a use for them yet, other than framing! When I need a large colored paper, I use Pastel paper, either Strathmore or Canson Mi-Teintes.

ALUM
I’ve read many times that you should not use grocery store alum for marbling, but only buy that expressly labeled for marbling.  Guess what? They are right.  I had to try some from a bulk food store that was just labeled “alum”, not “pickling alum”.  It did work, but I had a lot more papers that had alum streaks than usual.
Problems with alum are pretty easy to spot. If there are grainy, greyish spots or spots where there is washed out color, it’s probably due to an incomplete application of alum. The predominate problem I’ve had with alum, however, is user generated. I use the non-alumed side by mistake.

CARRAGEENAN
I’ve had few problems related to the carrageenan overall.  The proportions are important as is the blending time.  I use 2.5 Tbs. per gallon of water and blend for at least one minute. (I have very hard well water so I use bottled distilled water. Most people can use tap water.) It can last for up to a week, but I did have one batch that started breaking down after two days.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a paint problem, a carrageenan problem and general contamination.  In one particular case, I’m pretty sure it was just the carrageenan, because I mixed a new batch and the next day the same paint was fine. Contamination in the tray can usually be solved by a good skimming.  Just be careful to skim only on the top. If you dip too far into the carrageenan, you risk recirculating all sorts of bad stuff that has sunk to the bottom of the tray. Since all marbling takes place only on the top surface, what’s underneath can’t hurt, usually.  You can tell that the carrageenan is “worn out” if the problems affect all the colors. It also seems to manifest with globs with squarish sides rather than the rounder dots from paint problems.  The only solution for over-used carrageenan is to toss it and start again.
By the way, dirty carrageenan is Okay. In fact, it seems to work better after having a bit of paint in it.

UPDATE:  See my blog on “An Interesting Carrageenan Disaster” for a real problem I encountered.  In hindsight, I think I must have mismeasured the carrageenan and added an extra tablespoon.

PAINT

If you are planning to do a lot of marbling or marbling something special, it pays to start with quality paint.  I use Golden Fluid Acrylics because of their high pigment to carrier ratio. That means more intense colors even when the paint is thinned. They come in a wide range of colors and in several size bottles. Start with the 1 oz. size.  When you are using paint one drop at a time, you can do a lot of papers with 1 oz. Since you want the paint to float easily, avoid any “heavy body” paints. You should also avoid any paints meant for children. The cheaper paints have less pigment and can be unevenly blended causing problems for marblers.

Getting the paints balanced perfectly with your size can be very tricky.  One of the most obvious problems is having the paint contract into a tiny ball and drop to the bottom of your tray.  This happens when the paint is too thick or heavy in relation to the size.  The solution is usually to add more water to the paint, a few drops at a time.  Alternatively, a surfactant can be added to the paint.  I use Golden’s Acrylic Flow Release. Photo-Flo from Kodak can be used and marbling gall is used with watercolors.  Getting colors to spread instead of drop is usually just a matter of patience and trial and error.  I haven’t found a solution to the opposite problem, when a single drop of paint fills the entire tray! Reds and yellows are especially prone to spreading. To reduce the spread, you can try to add more paint, but I’ve found it’s easier just to start over with fresh paint and add water just a drop at a time until you have the right consistency.  I always mix very small amounts of paint to start so I don’t feel badly if I have to throw some out. Unlike painting, marbling is a matter of drops, not huge amounts.

Some paint will always drop out, at least it always does for me, but at the end of a session, the bottom of your tray should not be coated with a build-up of paint. Some scattered drops are normal.

A common problem I have is the paint granulating or stretching apart into tiny particles. This is especially noticeable when using metallics, but it happens with other colors. I haven’t found a real cure yet, but repeated stirring seems to help keep the pigments in suspension.  Just don’t stir so vigorously that you make bubbles. They are a real pain to eliminate.

If you click on the photos and examine the larger size, you can see where the paint has begun to break down. The finer I make the lines in the pattern, the more break down occurs. In some instances, like the silver and blue, the effect is gossamer, sparkly strands; in others, it is just a mess! The less you manipulate the colors, the less break down.

USER ERROR

Of course the most frequent source of problems is just me, especially in laying down the paper. All sorts of messes can occur, but air bubbles caught between the paper and the size are my most frustrating problem.  I have a gorgeous pattern in the tray and then a big bubble ruins it.

Hesitation lines are another problem I have on a regular basis. The lines occur when your paper isn’t placed on the paint in a smooth motion. Where you hesitate or jerk your hands, a line of paint forms.  This can be a desired result when you are making a ripple or moire pattern. I frequently have problems with the last corner and there’s a little line right there.  Hesitation lines are one of the reasons I don’t usually work with paper larger than 14″ x 17″. I’m short, my arms are short and stretching over a larger tray with longer paper results in lots of dips and lines.

More examples to come.

To be continued …

113 Comments

Filed under Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,