How I water marbled leather.

[Stetson912]

Water marbling is an old technique used by book binders to put decorative and intricate colored patterns on paper for use as end papers in books. Naturally, I applied it to leather (only logical right?)

This is not an original idea however. It has been done before. I was inspired by a recent post by cjartist. She used a Japanese method of floating ink on water called suminagashi. She had good results and it got me thinking... What about marbling paint?

So I purchased a kit from Jacquard available on Amazon. It was called a marbling kit and contains some alum(mordant to help colors stick), carrageenan(for thickening water/size), synthetic ox gall, and several colors of paint.

I halved the recipe for making the "size" and "mordant" mixtures and proceeded to experiment. 

I soaked some scrap veg tan for 5,10,and 20 minutes in the alum mordant mixture. I had a piece left untreated and another that I brushed some onto. 

For myself, I didn't have to alter the paint in any way, they floated and spread nicely right out of the bottle. So I made a pattern by floating different colors and using a skewer to swirl it around a bit. 

Top Left to right: no alum, brushed on, 5 min,10 min, and 20 min

Bottom: just some fun pieces using brush on technique. Here's another pic.

I found that a thorough brushing of alum mixture is all that is needed. The soaking didn't seem to benefit adhesion of the colors at all.

You will have to thoroughly rinse each piece after you marble it. The size is very slick and resembles snot and that's no good left on the leather, it'll also wash off extra pigment. Be sure to let it dry completely before any buffing or finishing 

I also tried a number of finishes.It held up to neatsfoot oil, super sheen, tan coat, and resolene. However, I had some slight rub off using Aussie conditioner so I wouldn't really recommend that. 

I emplor you to try it out yourself!

Cheers!

 

[Bodean]

Interesting for sure. 

[OLDNSLOW]

That's cool, the colors, the colors, look a the colors dude.  There is a whole generation of people that could dig that me too. 

[Stetson912]

Thanks bodean. I always thought marbling was interesting. The entire process is cool to me.

Thanks oldnslow. It's real fun to do. The kit was about 17 bucks so not a huge investment to try out. I want to make some rakes and other tools to get other patterns but just haven't the time yet. 

[billybopp]

Looks great!   There are a lot of things that can be done with this sort of technique.  If you want to experiment with rakes, they're very easy to make  ... get some foam-core board cut a piece about the width of your pan, or whatever width you want by 3-4 inches or so and stick some toothpicks into the edge at regular intervals.  I've done this with marbling on paper and it works great.  Just haven't yet got around to playing with it on leather ... Yet.

Bill

[Stetson912]

@billybopp that's a good idea I'll have to try that. I wasnt doing a serious project I was just doing proof of concept. But now I have to figure something out to use it on. 

I like the foam core idea. You can do 2 rakes on one and just flip the thing over to use the other side. So simple haha thanks again

[cjartist]

Looks great Stetson.  You've got a lot of colors going on there too.  Did you have to wait on the carrageenan to set up?

[Stetson912]

@cjartist thanks. I didn't have to wait but the 10 minutes or so it took to mix it up. It said it's best after sitting 12 hrs but worked fine right after I mixed it. 

[Chain]

Groovy 

[JMixx]

I saw the word "rakes" and immediately thought of going to the local thrift store to look for used kitchen serving utensils; wide-tined serving forks, spaghetti servers, whisks...

I love the color effects you're getting!

 

[Stetson912]

@JMixx, some people just stick toothpicks to a board or something. There are a bunch of ways you do it lol. 

[Old Coach Saddlery]

Super KOOL

 

[chrisash]

Please can you advice what dye or paint you used and found best

[Stetson912]

This was a while ago. I used a jaquardmarbeling kit that came with 6 colors and everything else you need. I followed the instructions that came with it and it worked out well. Jaquardproducts.com should have the kit. 

I just floated the leather on top as I would fabric or paper. Let it sit a minute or two then took it out and gave it a quick rinse to get extra pigment off. 

Let dry and seal. 

[Handstitched]

This is an interesting video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEUOzERo5M

I got stoned just watching that  

HS

[Stetson912]

20 minutes ago, Handstitched said:

This is an interesting video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEUOzERo5M

I got stoned just watching that  

HS

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of that product or I'd forgotten. The gel certainly makes it easier to transfer the color to the leather. But it also inhibits the spread of the color when dropped onto the "size". But that seems like a fair trade for the convenience. 

[toxo]

This technique is quite popular for camouflaging rifles and scopes. Love it.