marbling with spray paint

because spray paint is oil based and does not mix with water but forms a layer on the surface when an object is dipped in it surface becomes coated in the paint layer and leaves a completely covered finish. I found that mixing the paint on the water surface creates a marbled appearance unlike what could be achieved using spray paint alone.

wire

my personal favourite of the pieces created so far using an old cable,

I believe this works best as the black surface mixes best with the spray paint

cork

the first experiment

after using spray paint mixed with glue and water I noticed that without mixing the spray paint stays to the surface of the mixture and becomes harder to mix in the more water that is added, following this observation I believed that this could be used as a marbling technique. to test this I used a cork as it would be able to fit into the small container and was the closest item to hand, I found that when spray paint is applied to the surface of the water it will not mix but still bonds to any material it comes into contact with.

car rim 

using this process I have created a piece with the largest area that is not two dimensional, as a result I had to use significantly more paint and a larger container. for this I have used red gold and blue, a colour scheme I regret using as it does not suit the nature of the object, especially with the under colour of silver, as a result of this I should have stuck to using more harmonious colours within this piece to help bond with the shape and flow of the object. in the future I will consider more greatly the use of a darker undercoat to make the applied colours stand out against a neutral background.
















paper marbling

after finding that spray paint does not mix with water and can be used as a marbling material

the effect is very different from ink marbling, it is far bolder and is easily seen on a black background however the paint is far more likely to crumple and often does not cover the entire page, I personally find the cracked and fractured effect to be quite appealing and useful especially in juxtaposing images, I should find a way of dealing with the peeling to preserve my work, personally I so far have opted put putting work in plastic wallets and continue to look for alternative methods that do not make the surface overly shiny. the issue that I'm having with these paper experiments are unique to this material so far and does raise concerns for when this method is tried on fabric as that material may be even less adhesive than paper, this is not something I thought I would need to consider as this methods has worked very well on the other material I have used.

horse
as simple sheets have been used for marbling I decided that it may be worth experimenting with a more complex shape. after completing the marbling process however I found that some of the detail can be lost because the paint clings and sometimes covers the gaps, this was not much of an issue because of how fragile the paint is as it can simple be removed without damaging the paper it just takes a little focus and some time which is on larger pieces may be a problem. overall however using this process on a more complex shape does seem worth its while because the drawbacks are only very minor.

toy cars 

after a lot of looking I found a set of toy cars to use. this is to  bring in my other theme of transport and taking inspiration from the cartists exhibition in which many different form of art are carried out on vehicles, this processes however is new to this medium. the outcome is very positive with the merging and swirling colours juxtaposing well with the solid colours of the small cars. it may have looked better if areas such as the windows had been blacked out so that they cannot get pain on them to add a realistic element to the toys. overall I am far more pleased with this then I thought I would be and certainly hope to use this process within future projects.