Suminagashi

And so our lockdown begins. For a while, our kids feared they might be the last ones still stuck in class as country after country has shut its schools. But Singapore’s government has finally decided the necessary must be done, and tomorrow marks the first day of our month of “Home-Based Learning”. It’s been a rollercoaster week so I’m a bit late with this month’s post, but we’ve been dipping into the world of marbling lately and it’s a wonderfully calm, meditative artform, providing a moment of creative respite from the myriad anxieties swirling around us.

Marbling is a bit of a generic term for various art processes which involve floating ink or paint on a liquid surface and manipulating it to create fluid patterns. These patterns can be transferred to any primed surface – usually paper or fabric. The science behind marbling is almost as fascinating as the artmaking, which makes this an ideal STEAM activity for these upcoming long, lockdown homeschool days. 

We’ve been exploring a few types of marbling, but this month we’ll kick off with the most ancient marbling technique known to mankind: Suminagashi. Suminagashi simply means “ink floating” and is thought to have originated in Japan as early as the 12^th century. 

The process of delicately floating and swirling ink on a water surface is simple and mesmerizing. As usual we’ve made some videos to describe the process!

Even if you don’t have all the gear for the ideal setup, it’s pretty fun just experimenting with what you may have on hand. At its simplest, you just need a tray of water, 2 small paintbrushes, ink, dish soap (washing-up liquid) and paper. 

This video by Mr Otter Studio is a great example of successful Suminagashi with minimal supplies:

But as the ink we had didn’t float well, and we wanted to create bolder prints, we upped our Suminagashi game a bit by adding a dispersant (synthetic Ox Gall) to the ink and treating our paper with a mordant (alum) before printing. 

Apart from being a pretty awesome art activity, Suminagashi – and marbling in general – offer a lot of opportunity for scientific investigation – specifically into how different liquids interact and how surface tension works. Why does the ink form a circular shape when applied to the water surface? How does the ox gall help the ink to float? Why does the soap solution push back the ink? And if you’re thinking you may have seen something like this before on EveryChusDay, you might be remembering our old post on that milk/paint/soap experiment, which the girls also loved! I must be irresistibly drawn to the Marangoni effect.

We have also been exploring Turkish (ebru) marbling, and even digital marbling, so no doubt there will be more videos to come in this series! Watch this space.

Meanwhile, we hope and pray that all our family, friends and readers are keeping well and staying safe through these tough days of the Covid-19 pandemic.