Ebru (aka: Paper Marbling)

One of our long time members, Annette Dragon, shared an awesome technique with me the other day. Once I saw her results, I just couldn't wait for her to share it with you in today's Guest Blogger post.

Ebru or Paper Marbling

Just when I thought I had enough to learn with my new airbrush “toy”, I found a YouTube video about an ancient Turkish marbling technique (Ebru). Basically it is a process of marbling paper using ink, pigment, dyes, acrylics or whatever colored medium that could be "floated" on a bath of water. Further research on the method sent me off in a search for a bottle of liquid starch which can be used to "float" the paint on the water with some remarkable results.

 First you need a baking sheet with sides on it. Fill the baking sheet with liquid starch and allow it to settle to get rid of any bubbles you may get from pouring. Once settled, you should be able to "float" your paint on top. I used Createx acrylic paint. Gently touch the top of the liquid starch with a drop of paint poured directly from the bottle for the best results. (Be sure to avoid dropping the paint from too high up, as the paint will go right through the liquid starch layer to the bottom of the pan--I had to dispose of my first lot and try again.)

Once you have all the desired colors on top of the liquid starch, you can begin to "marble". Marbling can be done in several different ways. I started with a single bamboo skewer and swirled the paint around a bit to create a pattern in the paint. I was definitely not happy with that look, so I switched to a long pronged comb - you know the type of comb used to detangle very, very curly hair - and WOW! I got some really amazing patterns using that method.

I started out printing onto 8" x 10” hot press and cold press water color papers. Eventually I got so engrossed with this technique that I graduated to 18" x 24" mixed media paper, using a slightly different approach: Since I didn’t have a baking sheet or tub big enough for this size paper, I spread the liquid starch onto the paper with a paint brush; again waiting for the bubbles to dissipate before applying the paint. (You can use a good amount of starch as the base.) Once the color was applied on top of the starch layer, I swirled the colors using the same method above, until I was happy with the results.

Next, I took another piece of the 18x24” paper and laid it directly on top of the colored sheet, gently pressing them together to make sure the color was sticking to both sheets. Once I lifted the top sheet, I had a second print from a single application of paint. 

I spread all of my decorated pieces out completely flat and allowed them to dry. This can take up to 24 hours, but mine were ready to play with about 12 hours later. It’s important to allow the paint to dry completely before you do anything with it. I noticed the water color paper curls quite a lot.

There are many different ways to use these newly created decorative papers. I decided to create something special using one of my 18" x 24" pieces.

First, I looked through all of my digi stamps before I decided upon the In the Neighborhood “Houses” image. Using Photoshop CS6 - I increased the size of the image to fit the width (24") of the paper. I printed the images onto regular printer paper and colored the houses using water color crayons. Next, I cut out all three images, including some of the windows, and adhered them to my decorated paper. I added Stickles to some of the windows.

To further embellish the piece, I stamped Dyan Reaveley's “Leaves” at the bottom; filling them in with Twinkling H2Os. I stamped the Aurora Borealis “Falling Snow” background with white ink and heat embossed it with blue glitter embossing powder. I added small drops of blue Stickles to simulate stars in the night sky. I also added a couple of the swirly cloud images from Aurora Borealis; embossing with blue satin EP. I “sealed” the whole piece with a layer of Ranger's Distress Crackle paint in “Rock Candy”. Now I just have to find somewhere to hang it!

A big "thank you" to Annette for sharing this fun technique.

In honor of the coming holidays, the Club Scrap Creates Blog is hosting "12 Days of Giveaways"! For the next 12 days, we'll give away a Club kit to one lucky winner, chosen at random, from those who write comments on the post, through midnight (CS/Central time), each day.

Today's prize is an Apothecary Club Scrap Kit with Embellishment Pack. To qualify for this giveaway, simply leave a comment below, by midnight tonight (Wednesday, Dec. 12). A winner will be chosen at random and will be announced here tomorrow morning. 

Best of luck!

Creatively yours,
Karen