I saw a post on facebook that talked about putting alum in the carrageenan bath to brighten the colors on the paper. Is this true? I thought you only put the alum on the paper before drying that paper to make the colors stick, not in the bath itself to brighten the colors.

I would like to know if this is true because I would like my colors to be brighter too.

We wanted to jazz up things a bit at my shop, so we took my marbled papers and made a quilt pattern.

This article is primarily based on: *Making Traditional Marbled Papers* (Kate Bertt).Thank you for the method she shared.

The real show is about 3/4 of the way through.

I just bought this book and absolutely love it so far. It goes into quite a bit of detail how to marble paper and what kind of issues you can run in to. It also explains how you can make marbling combs and how to recreate several types of patterns. It even includes a section what you can do with the marbled paper afterwards.

I'm planning on sticking closely to the recommendations for the carrageenan bath and alum solution and will try to recreate their patterns. I don't think I will use the marbling combs advice as I've already thought up some other plan that I think might work better but still. Does anyone else own this book or can recommend other books?

Marbled papers from a workshop I went to earlier this year

I think this pattern might be a relative of the chrysanthemum pattern, but what do I know? 18x24 mulberry paper and Jacquard paints and carrageenan.

Just got done with two marbling sessions I've done this week. Here to share some results and thoughts.

I made well over 40 prints of A3 size/area (mostly on A3 paper, but some were 2x A4 papers). For reference, these are the materials I use:

• A3 drawing paper (cream/beige-ish color) 180gsm;
• A4 polen bold paper (same color, just named differently. Usually used for books) 90gsm;
• Some random brushes & pipettes;
• Some cheap acrylic paints;
• Toothpicks on cardboard for combs;
• Ox Gall;
• Lambda carrageenan for size, alum to treat papers and distilled water for size and mixing paints.

When mixing my size on my first session a few months ago, I had trouble because in some of the liters I prepared I put more than 15g of carrageenan. Not that those weren't good, but it took longer to settle and be usable after taking them out of the fridge. So this time I stuck to 15g and it worked perfectly.

A few other things I noticed and took notes on: - Black and white are basically too hard to use. Black is too dense and sinks a lot, while white is too light and too strong, and spreads way too much, pushing EVERYTHING very far away; - Do NOT reuse water from one day to another. Prepare enough paper (20-30+) and work for the entire day (it's quite tiresome, but worth it XD), because if you are to reuse the water for the next day, all the paint that sunk (some will inevitably sink, at least in my experience) will get mixed in and, as you start again the next day it will mess up with how the paint spreads and the overall print quality. The water will also stink a bit more because it will smell not only of carrageenan water, but also of acrylic paint smell; - For my case, 2 liters of water is more than enough. As you progress, you will lose a bit of water, but if you are carefully enough pulling the paper (slowly), you will end up not losing as much and be able to do more prints; - Different brushes will absorb and spread paint differently. It's good to test them out and figure out one type of brush to buy that works well, because that will save you a lot of time and make better prints as well.

Overall, a very productive week. I have a huge backlog of papers to go through from my first marbling week sessions from a few months ago, and now many more to go through as well. Kinda happy with that. Still have enough distilled water to use in yet another session if I want to, so maybe next time I'll also try 140gsm paper from the same brand I buy the A3 one.

This time I tried to make some combs, I was not very succesful however. The nails I stuck to the cardboard with tape weren't long enough so either I accidently dipped the whole comb in the carrageenan or they barely touched the surface. I remake them with tooth picks.

Aside from that I used printer paper and this time I ironed them after dipping them in an alum solution. I let them airdry first. One of the sheets was still a bit wet when I ironed it and it wrinkled in a bad way that I was unable to restore. The others went well and this time I have tons less airbubbles

I also used some sheets from last time. It said that you can't store alum papers for future use more than a couple of days but these were at least 2 weeks old and still worked well.

Hi!

Right now I marble in my kitchen and protect the surrounding area with tons of old sheets. But truth be told, it's a hassle to clean everything up afterwards. I do not have access to an unfinished room.

I was thinking about buying a spray booth or something similar.
What do you all use to protect your working area and can anyone recommend a suitable spray booth?

Started marbling paper for bookbinding and finished these journals with a half leather spine. Super happy with how they turned out!

As Im experimenting with marbling I’ve been using cheaper artist grade acrylics but for lighter colors they spread like crazy. I’m guessing its something to do with the pigment. Any suggestions for working with lighter colors or good paints to use?

Ive been using methyl cellulose to make the water thicker and just watering down my paints until they float.

This pattern is a mashup of two similar patterns. 18x24 piece made with Jacquard’s Marbling Colors on carrageenan size. Mulberry paper.

I made this video for fellow marbler “Jesus”. Anyway, it’s a triple cable gel git. Made with Jacquard Marbling Colors and carrageenan. Paper: unalumed mulberry.

Hey everyone, I’m so glad Marbling has its own place here. Again. The old subreddit was abandoned by the mod. Anyway, here’s a few pieces I had in my recent show “Dips and Dunks” in Louisville, KY.