One of my pieces got front paged for the first time!! This was really exciting, because of this and because of my use of one of my handmade textures in this piece, I want to talk a little bit about my marbling process and how I make the textures that I use in my artwork, as well as show some examples of the marbled artworks un-edited!

Marbling is a traditional form of printmaking where you create a 'size' (your water mixture) by mixing a tablespoon of carrageen into 3 litres of warm water. Once you've mixed together your size, you pour it into a tray where it's about an inch deep. My tray is around 14x24'', so I can comfortable do prints in bigger sizes. Preferably the size will have time to set for at minimum 6 hours, but I prefer to make it about 24 hours ahead of time. It's a lengthy process, lol!

From there you use lightened acryllics and either a brush set or a syringe to drop paint onto the surface of the water. The paint (in theory) does not sink and instead floats on the slightly thickened water. From there you can manipulate the design as you'd like, effectively painting on the water. When you're happy with the pattern, you lay a piece of paper on the surface (Treating your paper with allum ahead of time allows the paint a smoother transfer, but this step can be skipped for time if you choose, I've never had an issue skipping alum. If you are marbling fabric the alum is ABSOLUTELY necessary though), and when you peel the paper off of the surface, whatever was on the surface of the water will be transferred to the paper instead, and you're left with a clear clean surface to continue making prints.

I started doing this for fun, but I then started scanning the pieces I made and using them as digital collaging material in mixed media animation, and for textures and overlays in my digital illustrations. it's a lot more fun and personal than googling 'free texture' lol!

Here's a couple examples of some pieces I've made and scanned with this technique.

Some people see these and assume they're acryllic pours, but it's a completely different process. The more modern form of this art process would be hydro-dipping, but I prefer to keep to traditional techniques.

Whenever you see a swirly trippy looking background or overlay in any of my digital pieces, this is where they come from! Made by hand, with love