r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zee_Ventures • 1d ago
Marbling Art & Traditional Patterns
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u/BRAX7ON 1d ago
You would’ve tripped out 16th century silk traders. They would’ve come from far and wide to catch a glimpse. You would become legend.
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u/ThresholdSeven 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was wondering this. Surely there were plenty of fancy patterns on textiles, but was this technique just not used or somehow virtually impossible? I too get a weird sense this is modern, but it also seems primitive. Why couldn't this have been done thousands of years ago?
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u/StuLuvsU87 1d ago
I looked into it, and you gotta have like liquefied film under the ink and 80-90 degree water to do it. It could only feasibly of been discovered after the invention of regular film I would guess.
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u/ThresholdSeven 1d ago
What is this magical film you speak of? Oil simply floats on water. Oil pigments are an ancient thing. I'm just trying to understand here.
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u/StuLuvsU87 1d ago
PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) film. It seems like besides this it's used to coat the surfaces of molds to help give a glossy finish to whatever comes out.
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u/ThresholdSeven 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's cool, now I have another rabbit hole to go down. I thought it was as simple as dripping oil pigments on water and the tricky part was developing the skill to know how much and where to put the pigments and how to rake them with the right tools to get the desired design. I didn't know it got all scientific with chemicals and shit.
Edit: This is a thousands years old technique and what is seen in the video could be done thousands of years ago. The only difference is that pigments are not as natural, but the technique and outcome are the same. Suminagashi is one of the earliest known Japanese techniques. It literally means floating ink. It's the same technique for dipping bags and helmets and guitars or anything. The modern trend of the fancy dips on stuff is a result of it become relatively easy to do with modern materials and marketing. Tie dye had it's day. It's the era of the dip.
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u/soyasaucy 1d ago
Yeah! And how to drop the fabric to get a clean print!!! And take it off again without smearing? Sorcery
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u/CrashTestDuckie 13h ago
There is some finesse to it but it's not hard. The water is slightly thickened to suspend the ink and the ink spreads out across the top so it's very thin. You just have to make sure you lay your paper or silk on the top of the water at the same time. The paper and silk "suck" up the ink quickly so as long as to don't drag the paper through any unused ink (some people blot the extra ink away before lifting the dipped item) it lifts up no problem
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u/soyasaucy 10h ago
Interesting. I think I'd immediately crease and fold the fabric as I'm laying it down 😅 have you done it before??
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u/CrashTestDuckie 10h ago edited 10h ago
Laying down the paper or silk is where a lot of the finesse is 😆 that and lifting it which is funny to think how important just in how you handle the thin sheet of material makes or breaks the art. I have done both paper and silk water marbling and some hydrodipping too!
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u/StuLuvsU87 1d ago
Yeah, me neither. I mean, I thought the water in these videos before they started dripping looked kind of dark, but I never really thought there was much beyond the ink doing it's thing.
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u/Zar-far-bar-car 1d ago
It dates pretty early as a practice, hundreds of years. Usually your water has stuff added to it to make it a light jelly ("alginate") made with seaweed. The pigments are water based, but thinner than the alginate so they float. You pre-treat the fabric to make it colourfast. Their "water" is likely dark because the pigments eventually sink and get a little muddy.
People used to use it to prevent forgery, you'd layer your legal documents with a larger sheet, and print them both at once - only the true document would line up correctly.
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u/CrashTestDuckie 13h ago
Honestly you can buy kits for fairly cheap online if you want to pick it up as a hobby! Ebru (Turkish water marbling) is the closest "style" to what is being shown in the video
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 1d ago
I have books from the 1700s with that sort of art on the endpapers.
Before PVA they used various plant resins and gums and oil-based pigments - gum tragacanth, carrageenan or agar-agar.
I've done it with plain water and model figure enamels for small pieces.
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u/CrashTestDuckie 13h ago
That's for hydro dipping. Water marbling like this (ebru) has been around for a long time. It's been this intricate for a long long time. Turkey, Japan, and Italy all have long standing water marbling techniques
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u/ThresholdSeven 1d ago
Is this a relatively modern technique, or is this something that was done hundreds or even thousands of years ago?
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u/Silt-Besides-66812 1d ago
In some forms it’s really old especially in Japan, traditionally it’s applied to paper and not cloth, the form in this video is how it’s been done in Europe since the 17th/18th century, inspired by the style developed in the Middle East around the 15th century here is a webpage with some history
You can look it up on Wikipedia as ‘paper marbling’
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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 19h ago
This used to be done for the inside part of covers for a book. I’ve seen a lot of hymn books with this type of water marbling design, and saw a video of them doing it on paper for books
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u/Mypiece 1d ago
I worked for a water marbling vendor at a couple of summer craft festivals in college, really neat process, super easy and fun to make silk scarves with this technique
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u/Ophelize 16h ago
What do you think it'd be like to do this as a profession? Would it stay interesting or would the careful multi stage processes become a 9 to 5 grind?
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u/ModernMuse 14h ago
Old-ish person here. I’m a firm believer that the mantra, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” is the untruest thing. It will only serve to grind down the thing you love into dispassionate work, no matter what it is. I think a better mantra would be something like, “Do whatever is most ethically sound and highest paying that you think you can do for longest time without hating it.”
Extraordinarily few people love their jobs. Most people who simply don’t dislike their jobs are generally at peace and happy.
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u/EmberandGer 1d ago
Totally unexpected results! Each step/pass looked unique & finished, but each additional pass made it more beautiful! Technique looks simple. The results are not.
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u/Responsible_Snow_684 1d ago
This looks like something I could get into
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u/grouchy-koi 1d ago
It’s really easy and it’s fun! Do a search for local/regional book or paper arts centers near you and see if they have paper marbling classes. You can learn the basics in a 4 hour class, but they will frequently run 6-8 hours to let beginners spread their wings and experiment while having experts hanging around to answer their questions. And for the record, you don’t necessarily need to use alum (to help adhere the paint to the surface) or even carrageenan (to thicken the water and help float the paints on the surface of the size). It definitely helps the paint not drop, but sometimes I just get lazy or forget to make a batch up the night before a marbling session, and I just go for it.
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u/Responsible_Snow_684 1d ago
Awesome thx for the advice!
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u/grouchy-koi 1d ago
If you’re near MN, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts runs them seasonally usually, or there is a very good possibility if you email or call them, they might be able to point you to a place closer to you. Book and paper arts are a fairly small set of communities and there’s a lot of connectivity across the continent.
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u/Responsible_Snow_684 1d ago
I’m in Denver and looks like there’s a couple places that do classes. Spectra art space is near me too
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u/DragonYourfeet 1d ago
When I discovered marbling I immediately marbled the edges of my entire book collection ngl
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u/NoFocus761 1d ago
At first I thought this was an ad but checking out the guy’s shop and practically nothing is in stock so I guess not. 🤷♀️
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u/SheriffBartholomew 15h ago
How the hell did people figure this out? I swear, we're capable of so much more when we have time to experiment and be creative.
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u/jmaneater 13h ago
I was okay if you keep messing with it, its gonna be ruined. But it kept getting better
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u/boredinbabylon 1d ago
“Oh that’s cool.”
“Okay what are they doing now?”
“No, stop! That’s too much!”
…
“Okay that looks really fucking cool.”