Marbling With Watercolours

Watercolor marble by taheerah atchia.

Marbling with watercolours.

You simply press a piece of paper into shaving cream swirled with liquid watercolours and the colours and patterns are transferred to the paper making it look marbleized. Oil and water don t mix together so it is intriguing to see what happens when we mix them with watercolors. Generally when the activity of painting comes to mind we think of paintbrushes. Today i ll show you how to make marbled paper with shaving cream and liquid watercolours.

The colors of the historical natural palette are subtle but pleasing. Watercolor paint watercolor paper we cut these sheets in half pipettes or droppers oil we used vegetable oil you ll also need a tray to contain spills plastic cups butcher paper or cloth to lay your paintings on and paper towels. You can control the colors and how erratic you want the swirls and its amazing to then paint on top of or to use for mounting photos and such. Read more below to see how it went and our tips and tricks for keeping this colorful art activity fun with minimal mess yes this can get messy.

Ancient method of decorating paper. Examples do exist of cloth marbled with watercolor paints notably the cover of charles woolnaugh s 1853 book the art of marbling. One of the designs we made was marbling using shaving cream. Watercolor paper was the perfect thickness and absorbed the inks beautifully.

Historically all water based marbling was accomplished with watercolor or gouache paints formulated from natural pigments and binders. Thick white cardstock or watercolour paper ellen hutson letterpress cardstock used here water based dye inks distress inks in shades of green and grey used here. Easy diy paper marbling at home materials. Use watercolors to create a marbled background effect.

Marbled watercolor and oil painting with kids materials.