Introduction:
Create a decorative sheet of paper by floating paint on the surface
of a thickened water solution or starch. Marbled paper is a wonderful addition
to handmade books as the cover or inside sheet. Marbling paper is technically
a monoprinting process, a form of printing that creates one original. This lesson
acquaints the artist with use of color, patterns, and fine craft.
Materials:
Liquid jar
Acrylics,
i.e. Liquitex (thicker color may be used but must be thinned)
Liquid starch
Photographic
trays or new cat litter box
Jars to
mix thinned acrylics
Paint brushes,
spoons,whisks, or droppers
Hair pick
(long prongs)
T-pins in
cardboard strip (push T-pins into the corrugation of a 1" wide strip of cardboard
then tape over the top of the T-pins to keep them in the cardboard)
Construction
paper or other lightly sized paper (smaller than the tray)
Newspaper
strips about 1" wide
Directions:
Pour a layer of liquid starch in the photo tray or cat litter pan about 2"
in depth. Let it sit for a few minutes so that the bubbles settle out of it.
Mix water with the liquid acrylics to make it the thickness of cream. Put
a brush, whisk, dropper, or spoon in each separate color.
Drop, spoon, or spatter several colors on the surface of the liquid starch
or size. Drag the hair comb or cardboard strip with pins in it through the colors
to create a pattern.
Gently lay a piece of construction paper on the surface of the solution. Arc
your paper so the middle of it touches the solution first. Then let the ends drop
down onto the surface. This prevents air bubbles from being trapped between the
paper and solution.
Let the paper sit on the surface of the solution for a minute or so. The ends
of the paper will begin to curl up. Pick it up by the corner and lift it from
the surface of the solution. Let the extra starch drip back into the pan.
Place the piece of marbled paper on newspaper to dry.
Clean the surface of the starch by dragging newspaper strips across it.
Resources:
Chambers, Anne. Marbling on Paper Using Oil Paints. Search Press: England, 1992.
Clark, Lauren. Marbelized
Paper Patterns in Full Color. Dover Publications, Incorporated: New York, 1992.
