This whole marbling of fabrics has really got me hooked. It’s exiting and frustrating all at the same time. Yesterday I played with the Easy Marabu marbling paints which say they are for fabrics until you read the small print where it tells you they can’t be washed ( this just made me cross) as that was why I had spent time playing with them . I packed them away at this point as they were messy and I could feel my patience going.
I sat for a while with mum and we brain stormed over the technique, finally coming up with mixing acrylic paint with cooking oil. Our theory being that the oil would float on the water and hold the paint. This produced wonderful bubble effects within the marbling that I really liked. The only thing was that I couldn’t comb through the water because the droplets of oil didn’t drag on the surface. As the comb went though them they just separated into more globules of oil. I laid my fabric over the tray and loved the captured result.
The fabric was then laid on to brown paper to soak up some of the oil before being ironed between brown paper to soak up and remove remaining oil and set the acrylic paint to the fabric. I then washed it in hottish water and fairy liquid to make sure any lingering oil came out and that the paint had fixed firmly to the fabric.
Although not exactly what I wanted to achieve I have learnt that I could achieve bubble effects across my marbling by dropping oil on top of the design just before I lift a print from the size. I now need to test this further , just to make sure it happens like this every time. Watch this space and I will let you know
