Tuesday, February 21, 2012

[Make] Marbleized Paper

click "Read more" for the tutorial
I've been wanting to try this out for a while.  One of my teacher friends did this as a classroom art project and the results were pretty amazing. There are many ways to marbleize paper, but I found this to be one of the more simple methods that uses everyday supplies.

supplies needed:  card stock or photo paper, cheap shaving cream, good quality water colors (i used prang), paint brush, jar of water, flat tray, plastic ruler or straight piece of cardboard, skewers or fork.

Spray the shaving cream onto the tray...

Smooth out the shaving cream.
  If you want to make numerous prints, make your shaving cream layer about 1-inch thick.
Thinner layers are good if you have a more delicate design in mind (i.e. zigzags ).

Prep your water colors and...

Paint directly onto the shaving cream layer. 
Rinse brush often to avoid getting shaving cream into your paints.

All painted!

Using a fork or skewer, swirl a design into your paint.  
I used a fork to make this design.

Lay your paper on top and press down.

Lift up and remove the paper...

Using your ruler, scrape the shaving cream off in one straight swoop.

marbleized rainbow paper!
Continue with additional sheets of paper until the colors get muddled or start to fade.
With a 1-inch thick layer of shaving cream, I was able to color  4-5 pieces of paper.

marbleized blues and greens

marbleized purples and pinks

This project was a lot of fun. It's definitely a kid-friendly project and, when it warms up a bit, I'll send the boys outside to make their own colorful projects. 

The only downside?  You'll end up smelling like a man with cheap cologne...  It gave me a headache!  I also picked up a raspberry-scented shaving cream from the Dollar Store-- However, it has aloe and vitamin E and I wasn't sure if it would affect the outcome... I'll try that out next time and will let you know how it turns out.

Hope your week is going swell!



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Somewhat Simple