How to Marble Paper

Day 81 Special

I just realized yesterday was the 80th day of daily vlogs. Today is day 81 and it’s going to be a cool one—you may have noticed the clothes lines behind me. Today we put them to use.

The Project

My wife is an author and recently finished her first book of poetry. We’re going to publish it ourselves—just a 100 print run. This is 100 lb cover speckle tone from French Paper Company. We’re going to make the backgrounds for our covers.

The Materials

Carrageenan is the key ingredient—ground up seaweed. This increases the water surface tension. It’s a gelling agent that makes the ink set into the paper and stay there looking good.

Kodak Professional Photoflow breaks the surface tension—you need a very small amount. This is what creates the cool cells.

For brushes: a big cheap calligraphy brush, two smaller paint brushes, and homemade bundles of plastic twine from a broom cut up with rubber bands. One bundle for every color. You do a flicking motion to create random drops.

The Technique

I tried to rush the carrageenan earlier and it wasn’t fully dissolved—the ink just went right to the bottom. Now you can see how viscous my water is. The ink stays right on top.

We make marble art by making rings. You can keep alternating colors back and forth for rainbow effects. Even how you’re moving creates patterns—you don’t have to do it all in the same spot.

The Kodak Photoflow is what makes those cool cells form. You can drag things through to change the design, blow it around, drag strings through it.

Traditional Patterns

In traditional book binding, they use pieces of wood with nails and drag them this way, that way, and back again to create uniform patterns.

Making the Print

Orient your sheet where you think it’ll capture the coolest pattern, push it down, give it a second, then pull straight up. The faster you pick it up, the less smeared shadow effect you get.

I learned all this because I used to make leather journals and was selling them before COVID. The place I sold them shut down, then my house flooded, so I never got back into it. That’s how I learned book binding, leather working, and paper marbling.

The Results

Here are all the covers hanging. You can get a ton of different effects:

• My favorite is not dragging anything through, just leaving the bubbles
• The traditional style shows how they drag through multiple times with nail boards
• This one is very Metroid-inspired

I’ll keep making some every day until we get to 100.

Quick Painting Update

For those here for miniature painting: three hours total on the Silena model. About an hour and a half on buckles and belt, another hour and a half of glazes on the tabard. Long way to go still—and she’s going to a painting competition next Sunday.

Cloaks and fabrics really kick my butt. I’m calling the tabard done for now, but there’s visible brush strokes. Cloth is going on my list of things to study. That’s really the point of this miniature—figuring out where I’m deficient.

See you tomorrow for day 82!

Transcript

I just realized yesterday was the 80th day of daily vlogs, which is crazy. Uh, I had for some reason I had my count mixed up and I was behind a couple days in my head, but today is the 81st day of videos. It’s going to be a cool one. You may have noticed these clothes lines behind me in some of the videos, and today we’re going to put those to use. All right, so this is going to be a special one.

My wife is uh an author and recently finished her first book of poetry. So, we’re going to publish it ourselves. Uh, just a just a 100 print run. Um, I know a little bit about book binding and we are going to turn this is 100 lb cover uh speckle tone from French paper company. We’re going to make 100 covers or at least the the background of our covers cuz we’re also going to get some stamps to stamp on the front of it.

Old water. The other very important thing is is carrageenan. And I think I probably need to flip it this way for you all. Carrageenan. It’s seaweed uh ground up seaweed.

And this is what makes the water it increases the water surface tension. It’s a jelling agent. And it what it’s what makes the ink like set into the paper and stay there and look good. Kodak professional photoflow. We’ll need a very small amount of this.

This is what breaks the surface tension. And you’ll see that kind of in action and make more sense about what it does. Uh, in terms of brushes, I have just a big very terrible cheap calligraphy brush that came with the inks. Um, two just paint brushes, smaller paint brushes. And then these are this is just plastic twine.

It comes from a broom. So, I just bought a broom and I cut it up with rubber bands and made my own bundles. So, I have one of these bundles for every color that I use. And you do like a flicking motion and this creates this random drops. A lot of lot of cool designs come out of that.

Okay, I tried to do this earlier and I tried to rush the carrage inan and that was not uh fully dissolved in my water. So the ink just sat right on top and or excuse me the ink did not sit right on top. The ink just went to the right to the bottom. But now you can see how viscous my water is now. So, we’re going to pour about half of this in there and save the rest of it for tomorrow, probably.

Just make sure. All right. Yeah. So, you can see how viscous this water is. So, this will work much much better than where we were at earlier today, which uh I recorded, but I’ll probably just cut out of the video.

And so, now what we do is hopefully I’m in frame. is going to go into the solo cup. The red solo cup has our Kodak professional photoflow 200 is the Kodak photoflow surface tension. And then this is our ink. So now you’ll see the ink goes in.

And we do this, it can just make rings. And this brush sucks. So we’re not going to use that brush. Here we go. And we can just keep alternating back and forth to get our rainbow.

Here we go. This is what we’re looking for. And now uh you can see the ink just stays right on top of the water. And we make our marble art by making these rings. And there’s lots of different things you can do.

So you can see like even how I’m doing that, it’s making patterns. And you can even like you don’t have to just all do it in the same spot. We can even just take our ink dropper right here. Just do like real drops. And now if we go And that Kodak photoflow is what makes these cool kind of cells form.

Oh, we got to not lean on my tray. Let’s get that back up back up to the surface. Right. So, now we have we have this. So, we can I kind of like how these blobs look.

And uh but just for sake, you can start to drag different things through to change up the design. And so, I need to get out of my art. I can stop getting my shadow off the something in the middle here. And so this is how it’s supposed to look. And you you have no idea what I’m talking about because I’m going to cut the other part out.

But now I will kind of orient my sheet on here to where I think it’ll capture the coolest pattern and just push it down on here. Give it a second. And I should have had gloves on. But now you get this kind of pattern. And I picked it up like a silly head.

So I’m going to practice. I’m a little bit out of practice on this obviously, but the you faster you pick it up, you don’t get the smeared shadow effect like that, but it still looks really cool. So now I’m going to go hang this up on my clothes line and come back and do another one. You can see like there’s still a lot of of marbling left. And so we can do that.

And then now I now I can just come in and I can actually use this brush and fling drops at it, you know, and that’s what I use uh my homemade brush for too. Right. So now I had this still has not gone back into photoflow and it’s still like now it’s just a much easier to control effect and we can make these almost like alien looking effects and sometimes uh I so the reason I know how to do this is I used to make notebooks like leather are very high quality leather journals and I was selling them before uh before CO happened and the place I was selling them shut down and then my house flooded so I never really got back into it after I sold what I had. Uh but uh I just that’s how I learned book binding and leather working and paper marbling. So, I think we’ll also probably need a little bit over here.

See? And see like what you can do is you can come in with this a little drop and you just keep going boom boom and you can really just like you could fill up the whole tray by doing this kind of thing and then come in. So, there’s really a ton of cool different things you can do to make your designs in here because I still all that other stuff that I’ve made, it’s still there. And I should have got a better lighting situation. So, my big old head is not not blocking it.

But, see, I can come in, you can blow it around, you can drag strings through it. you know, and there’s also uh like in traditional uh like book binding, a lot of of older books when this was still like a a more common art, they’ll have like very kind of specific patterns that they do. And you’ll see they have like little pieces of wood with nails on it and they drag it this way and they drag it this way and they drag it this way again and it makes like a pattern like this but much more kind of uniform and cool. Okay. So I think we’re ready for another sheet.

And so again, we’re going to try to avoid having the drag marks on this one. So, boom. Make sure. Give everything a second. And now, straight up.

And there we go. Now we look like we know what we’re doing. Now it looks great. drip our excess off. I’m going to set this one.

Okay, so here we go. All the covers I just made, or not all of them, actually. I couldn’t fit them all on the lines, but you can see you can really get a ton of different effects. Uh, this kind of style is my favorite where you don’t actually like drag anything through it and you just leave the bubbles there. Uh, and then this style here is kind of like not it’s not very traditional, but it’ll give you an idea of like with the boards with the nails how they drag it through and then drag it through and then drag it through.

Uh, this one, this is very Metroid inspired. Uh, but here’s all of them hanging. It’s pretty cool. And I’d probably just keep making some a little bit every day till we get to 100. Okay.

So, if if you’re here for miniature painting, which at this point I don’t know why you would be, this is where we are. This is three hours total on the model and on our tabard here. Uh, we put about an hour in last night. So, two hours on those buckles and the belt or actually probably an hour and a half on the buckles and the belt and then I put in another hour and a half of glazes on this tabber that I just can’t film very well. Maybe if I try this.

No, maybe there. Can kind of kind of get an idea of where we’re at. So, a long way to go on the tabard still uh to get it up, but >> we got to stop messing around because that’s going to a event/painting competition on s next Sunday. So, I have exactly a week to finish that model, which has a long way to go. And then the other thing, uh, my 40mm objective that I’ll also be entering is, uh, this this Love Shack outhouse.

So, I got to definitely get some work done on this. I have it primed. So, it’s pretty awesome. All right, I’m going to call the tavern done for now, but there’s, again, I’m being hyperritical because that’s how I’m going to get better. It kind of sucks.

So, uh, I just I’m going to add clothing and like capes and fabric to my list of what I need to definitely get better at. And like sure it’s great for tabletop. Uh but it’s just like there’s visible brush strokes. I don’t really like some of the glazing that I did. I don’t think my color choice was really that good.

But that’s okay. I’m going to move on cuz it looks fine. Whoops. But it cuz it looks fine and I’m going to work on the rest of the model to get progress there. And at like tabletop distance, it looks great.

Uh but again, it’s just not a level of painting that I’m trying to achieve. So cloth going on the list of things to study. And that’s really what the point of this miniature is me figuring out like what specific areas am I deficient in and what do I need to start practicing more of. And that’s going to be a lot of technically hobbying is making art which is always cool and it’s cool to do with my wife. So that was today.

Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow for day 82. I got to start remembering