This past weekend, I took a one day Paper Marbling workshop. I loved it! We did two different styles, Suminagashi (Sumi) marbling and Turkish marbling. The handout about the techniques from our instructor stated “Sumi marbling was generally developed in East Asia using sumi inks that were partially dipped with either brushes or bamboo skewers. The Turkish marbling was not really developed in Turkey but is the type of marbling people typically associated with the method of using the materials carrageenan and alum”. The surface can also be raked with nails or toothpicks. The Turkish marbling produced a clearer, more complex pattern.
Both processes started with a tub of water with inks or paints dripped onto the surface of the water. For the sumi style, we used a set of ink in droppers from a kit. I found the kit on Amazon and it’s somewhat inexpensive. I would love to have enough kits to do this process at school – I think the kids would love it. New goal for the new year! Once I was happy with the inks on the surface of the water, I laid my paper onto the surface, let it set for a few seconds and then pulled the print. You can apply the ink over and over, but the water does start to get murky, so you may want to change out the water occasionally.
The Turkish style involved a different set of inks and a new ingredient – Carrageenan. Apparently the Carrageenan is made from Irish sea moss, it’s a thickening agent that helps the pigment float. A measured amount of the Carrageenan was mixed by our instructor and poured into our water tubs. It’s my understanding that the Carrageenan is why the pigment was more stable and didn’t sink to the bottom of the water pan as much the sumi inks. This allowed us to capture some really nice details on the paper. We were also encouraged to use toothpicks to manipulate the colors – something we couldn’t do with the sumi inks. Again, we laid our paper over the water and pulled prints.
We learned about a few other materials you can use during the marbling process. This is all from the handout from our instructor.
-Ox Gall – an ingredient in watercolor paint, it’s used in marbling to help with surface tension in order for pigments to spread on the surface of the water. We added it to acrylic paint, so that the paint could be used as a marbling pigment and not sink to the bottom of the water pan.
-Kerosine – used to create negative space in paper marbling. A substitute can be soapy water, which is what we used in this workshop.
-Alum – Used to treat the paper surface in order for the marbling to apply more evenly and without spreading or bleeding.
I loved both techniques, although I think I prefer the end result of the Turkish marbling a bit more. But both processes were fun, oddly relaxing, and very satisfying!
Sumi Prints
Turkish Marbling Prints
