North Redwoods Book Arts Guild

If you are interested in more info or joining, please email to no.redwoods.bag@gmail.com

Thursday, October 13, 2016

SUMINAGASHI WORKSHOP PHOTOS - October, 2016

On October 7th and 8th, our NORBAG member from Portland, Jackie Wygant, gave a Suminagashi workshop. We had 11 members on Friday and 12 on Saturday.  Suminagashi  or "floating ink" is the process of marbling plain paper with water and ink to transform it into something vibrant and colorful. 

We started with simple rings being deposited with big round brushes. We progressed to multiple rings, blowing on rings to create distortion and finally overprints (on maps and previously marbled papers). We took a lot of paper home with us.

If you would like to try this ancient art form, you can get started with a couple large brushes, a cookie sheet with sides and Bo-Ku Undo dye set of six colors available at both Dick Blick and Amazon ($13-18). 
All of the tables were gathered around Jackie's workstation on the left. We had varying sizes of trays for the inks
Jackie loading her brushes
 
Closeup of making rings. The light parts between the grey circles actually have color.
Making multiple rings with four different colors
Manipulating the rings by blowing with a straw

Manipulating the rings by blowing gently from the side

 
Jackie gently lays the paper down starting from one corner
Here is the result from Jackie's technique of blowing from above
 And now our samples








These two are overprints. On the left, it is on a map and on the right is an overprint on another marbling page.