In 2013 I had so much fun marbling. It really became an obsession. I even taught a local three-session class on it to lure the local art girls into marble mania. If you are interested in my past marbling adventures, check out these posts.
Yesterday I decided to return to marbling. Here are some of my pieces from that session.
This time I am marbling using the Jacquard Marbling Kit.
This kit comes with everything you need to marble except fabric or paper and the marbling pan. It also comes with directions and troubleshooting tips.
As I talked about before in previous marbling posts, this is not a process that you decide to do in the morning. There is some prep.
For the fabric prep, dissolve 4 tablespoons of Alum in one gallon of warm water.
Add fabric and let it soak for 20-30 minutes. I decided to marble some previously ice dyed pieces and some plain white fabric.
After soaking, hang the fabric to dry. Iron and it is all ready to be marbled.
To prepare the thickened water or “size”, add 2 tablespoons of the the carrageenan slowly to a gallon of warm water. The best way to do this is with a blender. Adding a cup or two of water and a little carrageenan. Then dump that into a container and add more water and carrageenan until all of the carrageenan has been added. It needs to be completely dissolved.
Now wait until it clears. They recommend 12 hours. After mine was completely dissolved, I put it in a gallon water jug and stored it in the dye studio refrigerator for the next day’s session. The next morning I took it out of the refrigerator, poured into my marbling pan and let it sit for several hours so that it could come to room temperature. This is an important point – the marbling size and the paint need to be at room temperature. If there are any bubbles on the size, drag a piece of newspaper over the surface toward you.
Now it’s time to play. Here is my studio set up to marble.
The small plastic container in the front is for me to test the paints on the size. I took a little bit of the size and put it in the container and then added each color to see how it spread. They all worked great so it was time to get started.
Next comes the fun part – creating the pattern on the size. If you’d like to see me creating a pattern on the size, check out my video at the end of this post.
Once you like your pattern, lower the fabric on top of it, lift it off, and set aside on newspaper or newsprint.
Once done marbling, lightly rinse off each piece and hang them to dry.
After 24 hours, iron. In the past when I’ve ironed on the right side, it messed up the pattern. Because of that I recommend ironing on the wrong side of the fabric. Jacquard recommends not washing the fabric for several days and then hand wash cold or on a gentle cycle in the washing machine.
As for the used size, if it’s not too “dirty” with paint, you can save it and use it for another session. However, it doesn’t keep long even in the refrigerator. Mine was pretty dirty so I poured it down the drain with running hot water.
Here are some of my favorite pieces:
This last piece I took the picture vertically because of the design. It looks like a flower to me! The second and last pieces were previously ice dyed with Jacquard Antique Gold.
So here are my thoughts about the Jacquard Marbling Kit:
- These paints are so much easier to use than the acrylic paints. There is no mixing required. They spread great right out of the bottle.
- The paint can be added to the size right out of the bottle due to the great little tip on the end.
- Very little paint dropped to the bottom of the marbling pan.
- All of the colors were pretty vibrant on the fabric especially the purple and yellow. A couple of pieces looked faded, but that was due to not adding enough paint.
- Great directions are included in the kit.
- In my past marbling sessions. my favorite pieces have been those that are marbled over previously dyed fabric. In this session, I liked my pieces that were previously dyed, but I also loved the ones that I added a lot of paint so there was very little white showing. For those pieces that I didn’t like or looked faded due to lack of enough paint, I can definitely over marble them as I have done in the past.
I did not use the synthetic gall that’s included in the kit. It helps to make the paints spread which I didn’t feel I needed. If you want one color to dominate you can add it to a little of the paint.
If you are interested in marbling, I highly recommend this kit. In the past it was fun to experiment with acrylic paints, but I found my results with these marbling paints far superior. And the fact I didn’t have to work with getting the paint the right consistency saved a lot of frustration and paint. I love my results!
Marbling is really a neat process. It’s so magical to add the paint to the size creating beautiful designs. To give you an idea of how the process looks, here is a little video from this session.
See other Off the Wall Friday inspiration. That’s all for today. Thanks again for dropping by.
Disclaimer: I received this product from Jacquard. The opinions expressed here are 100% my own. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review and received no monetary compensation.
Beautiful, Lynda! I have had this on my list of things to try for a long time… definitely want to do it now. Have you tried it on larger pieces of fabric than the one in the video? I would love to do some at least 16″ long for book covers, but was concerned if I would be able to handle placing and removing the fabric if it is that long.
When and where will you be having your next class?
Judy, Thanks. In the past I’ve marbled on larger fabric, but decided for this session I wanted smaller fabric – mostly 11 x 14 or so. Some were 11 x 17. I just tore some random pieces. Just lift by two different corners and then have an area nearby to lay them down. Would love to see what you do. I think a few of these will make some cute muse dolls!
Hi Toni, If you are talking about marbling classes, I won’t be scheduling any of those in the near future unless there is an interest in it. I do have a Painted Zippered Bag class coming up at Scattered Art in Newburgh on August 6 and then a silk scarf dyeing class on November 5. Info on the bag class is at https://lyndaheines.blog/workshops/. If you have any questions about classes, please feel free to email me at lheines at wowway dot com.
Lovely results Lynda.i agree that making color on plain fabric is just a magically wonderful way to spend your day!
sonja hagemann recently posted..After the fair is over…
Sonja, Thanks! And thanks for dropping by.
This looks like a fun way to spend a day, and you have some lovely results.
Kaja, Thanks!
Hi Lynda – Could you see any reason why I couldn’t do this technique with a plain white t-shirt? Would you suggest a soda ash bath first?
Carol, First of all you need to use alum as the mordant, not soda ash. You can do this with a t-shirt, however, it would be tricky. You would need to marble one side first, set it aside and then make your pattern again in the size (marbling water), and marble the other side of the shirt. You could just marble the front side only though. I have seen silk scarves marbled on both sides and I assume you need to wait until the one side dries before you marble the other side. Before you take on that project, practice marbling both sides on fabric. When I overmarbled my fabrics, I waited for them to dry, washed them according to the instructions from the paint company, and then soaked them in alum again for the next marbling session. Hope that helps.
Hi Lynda, I like the idea of using a white pan…what size is it and where did you purchase it please?
thanks,
Barbara
Hi Barbara, That is an old darkroom tray I bought on ebay years ago when I first started marbling. As far as the size, that one is 17 x 20 x 2. However, as you know size really depends on how large of fabric or paper you want to marble. I think the white is probably the best, although I’ve seen other teachers use disposable foil roaster pans which I think would work fine. My idea of the gardening trays might not be the best bet for this technique due to being black. I looked back on my posts about my marbling class and several of my students used either clear storage containers or white wash pans. Come to think of it, I have used a large clear storage container before which also worked. Hope that helps.
Thanks Lynda…I’ve only recently gotten interested in marbling. I ordered the DVD, Jacquard kit and now searching for a pan….clear or white preferably.
Barbara, Barbara,
You will have so much fun. As I mentioned in that last post, my favorite is using the Jacquard Marbling paint. I tried Golden like Jo used and also ProMarbling paint and it’s so much easier with Jacquard – don’t have to fool around with getting the paint just right. Don’t know if you read my other marbling posts, but ProChem’s Promarbling is great on paper but I didn’t have any luck on fabric – pretty blah!
Have fun!!
What kind of fabric do you recommend?
Hannah, I use 100% cotton for all of my dyeing etc, so that is what I use. Jacquard recommends using 100% cotton PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric, but a nice muslin will also work.
Ok what do u use that tiny piece of fabric now… I was looking at making a top or shorts???
Jeanne, I’ve used this fabric to make small bags, art quilts etc. You can marble as large as you want. You will just need a larger container to put the marbling water in. You can do two sided fabric, but you will need to put something between the layers. For instance, put a piece of cardboard inside the shirt and marble one side. I’d wait until it dries to marble the other side. It’s easier to marble flat fabric that can then be made into clothing items. Again, you can marble any size you want. You just will need a container large enough for that item. Thanks for dropping by.
I am about to marble some silk scarves. I purchased jacquard Procion MX dyes by accident. Two things – do you know if there is any way to use the MX dyes for marveling? And more importantly, can you dye silk with the marveling kit? Thanks!
Andrea, You are talking about two different processes. You can dye those scarves with the procion dyes and get some lovely scarves, but they won’t be marbled. Marbling involves paints, not dyes so no you can’t actually dye them with the marbling kit but you still will be adding color. If you want the scarves to be marbled, the easiest and the best way (in my opinion, after lots of experimenting which you can check out by going to my marbling tutorial posts) is with Jacquard’s marbling kit. The easiest and fastest way to dye silk scarves is with Colorhue instant set dyes. This is especially for those who want an easy way with no soda ash or other mordants. I teach an online course – Instant Silk Dyeing – that shows you how to use those and get great results. I’ve taught lots of people locally how dye these scarves in a two-hour class and they leave wearing their beautiful scarves!! Here is the link if you are interested in learning more about it: https://lyndaheines.com/p/easy-silk-dyeing
Hi Lynda,
Love your designs!
I would love to use the same technique but on a larger scale, silk scarf length approx 60”. What do you recommend using for the dipping pan?
Thank you!
Gabriella
Gabriella, I’ve never done it, but have seen where artists have constructed pans by making a frame using 2 x 4s. You need to make it the length of the scarf. Then put a piece of plastic drop cloth in the frame to hold the size. Hope that helps!
Thank you! That’s exactly the plan! Love your work!