Ebru

Ebru
The Traditional Turkish Art

"Paper Marbling" 

"Water Marbling"

     Today my roommate, Ilgin, told me she was going to Painting Club and so I invited myself to join because I have been art deprived ever since leaving all my supplies back in the USA. Ilgin said the instruction would start at 5:00 and that she would meet me there, so as an American I was there at 5:00 sharp. Turns out the class didn't start until 6:00. So I spent my free hour looking around the art room, checking out the students' works in progress, and exploring the supply cabinets. Upon exploration I discovered a mysterious back room connected to the paint studio. There were tables set up with paints and strange trays full of thick clear goop that I have never seen before. I poked the goop and it felt thick and oily. There were stacks of newspapers next to the chairs and the paint brushes scattered around were very thick and looked to be made of horses hair. I was beyond intrigued. So rather than staying in the plain old boring painting room where they were working on scenes of different colored bottles. I hung out with the cool kids in the back room playing in the goop. Turns out they were learning how to create Ebru marbled paper which is a traditionally Islamic art form that originated in Turkey and all of the materials used are still 100% natural (apparently the goop is made from some sack-like organ in the side of a cow that contains poisonous liquid and smells pretty bad). The dyes are all natural and usually artists will stick to using only earth tones. 

     You get so messy when learning how to paint this way! It is so much fun! First you  mix the powdered cow organ stuff with water and fill a 35x50 sized metal tray with it. Then you flick dye droplets into the tray. Then, if you're feeling fancy, you use a metal poker to create cool designs in the dye droplets. And after that, if you've got the skills, you drop a single dye dot into the goop over and over again until you have a display of different colored drops. And after that you take the metal poker again and rearrange the dots until you have an epic image! Finally you carefully place a piece of perfectly fitting paper on top of the dye&goop, make sure there are no air bubbles, and carefully peel the paper out of the tray. And POOF! You have you're very own breath taking work of art. 

       I don't know if that description makes sense at all but it basically is like magic. I have never heard of or seen anything like this before. It is absolutely amazing! And surprisingly easy once you have the technique down. It works because the dye is water based and the goop is oil based so the dye floats on top of the goop and doesn't separate into it. 

    My description is probably quite confusing so I included some demonstration videos below which are so much fun to watch. They descend in order of most amazing to most instructional. I would recommend watching them in full screen.