What is ebru? Also known as paper marbling, it is the Turkish tradition of painting on ‘water’. This art form is super satisfying and provides organic natural patterns and shapes (usually to paper)! There is no end for the kind of patterns, shapes and colors you can make!
It is an art form where you paint directly on the surface of liquid in a shallow tray. I used a thicker substance called carrageenan in the shallow tray (I will refer to it as water). This stuff looks like water but generally keeps the paint floating on top of it. I simply splashed paint in my color choices (I am practicing galaxies here). I wanted to keep my pattern very organic and flowy so I splashed but you can create actual shapes by dripping paint more carefully.
the most classic look/pattern is simply by splashing different coloured paint onto the water and pulling a cool rake-like tool which drags the paint into different shapes (you can also use chop sticks or toothpicks or anything to move the paint on the water):
if you want a more specific look, you can control where the paint is being put down. here is an example of a pattern made by dripping paint in one spot. so first you would put a drop of white paint, then a drop of black paint in the middle of your first drop and so on…
you can stop here and place your paper (or wood) down for this pattern or you can use the toothpick or rake thing to move the paint:
Once you’ve finished your design, you place a sheet of paper on the surface to transfer the design from the water onto the paper or other surface.
One of my most favourite pieces (to this day) was created using this technique. I added the art of pyrography for details such as mountain tops and tree’s.
Water Marbling Toronto gave me an opportunity to try something new at their studio. Without hesitation, they offered their space and their support to try this art form on wood! Generally practiced on paper, I had no idea if it would work on wood. I really wanted the organic and natural looking shapes and so I gave it a try! You can see the process of creating the splatters and patterns below:
I started off with a piece of wood. For the mountain design, I just blocked out the parts I didn’t want to have paint on them by using tape. Then proceeded with the steps to marbling, let it dry and then wood burned and watercoloed the mountains afterwards!
Here is another piece that I made.
even if I were to try by best, each piece turns out unique and completely individual. You can control the paint on the water and use tools to drag and pull the paint around in order to make specific patterns and designs (especially with a lot of practice). but I prefer if the water decides where it wants to go and how it moves the paint. for me, this is the best part about this art form! it truly does create organic looking and natural patterns.
