I want to show off some lovely pastel rainbow journals I made using Boko Undo Suminagashi inks (affiliate link) – and before you leave a comment, YES they are very light in color once they dry! If you are looking for bold, vibrant colorful marbled paper, you need to try a different style of marbling […]
Summertime memory: coming back from the beach during the heat of the day to eat ice cream sandwiches and watch “Saved By the Bell” reruns at my grandparent’s house. And now I live in the same house! But…no TV…and also I’m lactose intolerant now, so no ice cream. But hey, one out of three ain’t […]
Paper from West Palm Beach While I didn’t marble the paper on this book cover myself, I won’t forget where I bought it from. It was a hot afternoon in September and we were driving past West Palm Beach for a follow up appointment for my husband’s Lasik eye surgery. We planned to stop at […]
I’m so excited to unveil a new style of handmade artist book. It features a luxurious Japanese silk book cloth cover, with precision circle inlay that features stunning, one-of-a-kind marbled paper. I like the idea of a book containing a hidden surprise, so I used the same beautiful paper for the inside endpapers as well. […]
This is a very special journal I made all in one go. By that I mean, I was “in the crunch” for at least 8 hours putting the finishing touches on it, adding gold leaf, cutting out birds with an exacto knife, hand-painting in tiny bird beaks. Also somehow I managed to make it without […]
Suminagashi is the ancient art of Japanese paper marbling where calligraphy ink is floated on top of water in concentric rings and then a print is taken with handmade Japanese washi paper. I did an extra step with this paper and fanned it before taking the print, which caused the lightly jagged edges. I love […]
Paper Marbling from Ruth Bleakley on Vimeo. I’ve had a couple of questions from students about the actual mechanics of paper marbling – it’s hard to describe in words, but I’ve created a nice little slideshow so you can see how it’s done! 1. Fill a tray with marbling “size” created from a mixture of […]
I’ve gone off on a tangent from bookbinding into making marbled paper, popular in the mid to late 19th century as endpapers in leatherbound books. Marbled paper is created by floating diluted watercolor paints onto a marbling “size” – water thickened with carragean (a type of seaweed) extract. The consistency of the marbling size is […]