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| Palm |
As anyone who has done marbling is no doubt well aware,
marbling is a ‘small’ craft. There aren’t many around who do it and
consequently even appropriate paint can be hard to get hold of – I order mine
online from the States. Marbling rakes and combs for sale are somewhat
trickier. After an extensive search I can tell you with some confidence that
they just aren’t available, or at least not sold by anyone who ships to New
Zealand and charges something I'm prepared to pay.
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| Nonpareil |
There is of course a good reason for this, beyond even the
small potential customer pool. Everyone develops their own methods in marbling, including their
own basins. My main ones are actually the plastic draws of an
office organiser, perfect for me as they neatly hold my preferred paper size
(A4) with a little space around them - and they can go back to being office furnature when I'm not marbling. The size of the rakes and combs need to
be appropriate to the basin size which really means they must be made to fit.
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| French Curl |
I’ve been making do with some fairly awful pin and cardboard
combs I put together in a couple of hours last year. The pins shift, the
cardboard bends and disintegrates when wet. I only had 1 and 0.5 cm combs and
no rakes. Finally I got my act together and hauled out the tools. I’m proud of
the result. I now have short and long 1 cm combs, and 1″ and 2″ rakes and a
bouquet rake.
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| Pretty yet vicious marbling tools |
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| Double-Cabled Nonpareil |
Of course they didn’t stay looking this pretty for long. I’ve
barely done a month’s worth of marbling with them and they all already have
paint splatters – and a couple have some wonderfully marbled sections where
I’ve dropped them in the size. Still, they are working very well and haven't broken yet! The marbing pictures on this post are some of my recent experiments with patterns I haven’t been able to make before.
