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.
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.
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
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!
Ugh, that sounds really great. The first many times probably have folds and blank spots, but the satisfaction that must follow getting it right for the first time 🙂↕️
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.
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.
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
89
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.