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About a dozen of us were happy to meet a cheerful Cherryl Moote on a sunny Saturday, ready to have fun with "Modern Marbling Techniques". Cherryl showed us samples of some interesting marbled papers done in the Suminigashi style-using inks and colours on top of water. We discussed various types of paper such as Plainfield, kozoke, mulberry, watercolour, shogi, cover stock, Deskjet printer paper (not laser printer paper), Avery labels, envelopes and pastel photocopy paper, etc. The best inks to use were from the Innovative Marbling Dye Kit by the Boku-Undo Co. from Japan. Other possibilities included folk art paints, sumi ink and Dr. Martin dyes.
Cheryl with some of our attentive members
To have fun like we did, do the following:
1. Protect the table with a plastic drop cloth or newspaper.
2. Fill a plastic tray with several inches of water.
3. Carefully squeeze a few drops of pigment on top of the water.
4. To make a hole in this colour, use a paint brush dipped in a mixture of 1 drop "Kodak Photo-Flow 2000" to 1 tsp. distilled water, and touch the tip of the brush to the pigment. To make concentric rings, alternately touch the water with brushes loaded with pigment and Photo-Flow. (Jet Dry for dishwashers is an alternative to break the surface tension.) OR, drop pigment onto a small 1 cm. diameter float paper-colour flows on to the surface of the water, rather than sinking to the bottom.
5. To create interesting designs, use a comb or stick, or blow through a straw to move and swirl the colours.
6. Hold the paper on opposite sides. Bring your hands together slightly and let the concave belly of the paper touch the water first, then drop the sides into the tray. This prevents air pockets from forming on the paper.
7. Carefully peel the paper off the water. Cloudy or left over pigment may have to be rinsed off under running water to prevent streaking. Put it on newspaper to dry, and VOILA!
8. Use the strips of newspaper to skim off leftover pigment on top of the water.
9. Periodically wash out the tray with soap and water.
The first print pulled will be the brightest, with subsequent ones being paler and more subtle. For a special effect, re-marble over a dried print. Cherryl generally uses gelatin with children. Some of us tried using "Glide" fabric starch and also gelatin as size, but weren't very successful.
Voila
Secondary prints of black sumi ink on pastel paper and the paler multi-coloured prints on white, make good backgrounds for calligraphy.
Cherryl suggested using a small size matboard frame or slide-cover to isolate the perfect sample on a piece of marbled paper.Another tip was to use Peel'n Stick double sided adhesive paper to give body to thin Japanese paper and to mount it with glue.
We all had an opportunity to try the various papers, pigments and paints, and were happy to go home with a pile of interesting prints.
Thank you Cherryl.
Report by Alice Muller
Deep in thought
What do you think of it so far?
Examples from the Workshop
Click on image to see full size