2019 #18 Shaving Foam: Infused marbling with ECF {by Dounia Large}

2019 Topic 18: Shaving Foam

For our first foray into marbling with shaving foam, Dounia has thrown herself into experimenting with Infusions and created some amazing marbled effects with superb stitching too.

Hello everybody, it's Dounia from France with you today, sharing my experiments with shaving foam and Infusions.

I love paper marbling and with shaving foam in particular; a relatively new technique for an ancestral art. I have seen it done with paint and all sorts of inks and wondered if I could make it work with Infusions. They are inks after all ! Here are my findings...

The technique is quite similar to marbling with other media and starts with a nice layer of foam in a plastic tray. I then sprinkled a selection of Infusions on the foam.

During my experiments I learnt that the different colours do not react at the same speed or with the same vibrancy. As I wanted pretty bold colours, I worked with Are You Cerise, Orange County, Golden Sands, Emerald Isle and A Bit Jaded.

As the Infusions are activated by water, I sprayed some on the foam with a fine mister. I then used a ruler to spread the colours. Each clump of powder makes a line, creating the perfect base to add a design with a stick. I often prefer classical marbling patterns and do a lot of feathers or non pareil but more spontaneous and random patterns also work well.

The amount of water you add impacts the pattern. More water creates diffusion and therefore less defined lines. The Infusions contain both powdered colours, (which react first) and walnut stain (which is slower to develop), so the more water you add and the more you work the foam, the more prominent the brown walnut stain will be.

Once happy with the pattern, I carefully placed the paper on the foam and "massaged" it to ensure contact. I then lifted it off the foam and carefully scraped it off. This reveals the pattern but also drags the undissolved Infusions, creating extra lines.

Most of the left over colour accumulates on the end of the squidgy so you need to clean it well and frequently or it will leave marks like here where I stopped in the middle to take the picture!

I like to reuse the foam again and again. With the walnut stain of the Infusions, it gradually turns a lovely brown shade that can be used to contrast with the white of new foam, as seen in some of these examples.

My next idea was to add stamping to the marbling. I had my heart set on this great plate by Courtney Franich, ECF06, as I like somewhat strange and abstract images and I thought the thin and detailed stamps would contrast nicely with the marbling patterns.

I thought the stamps would not really be visible over the marbling however so I made masks in the shape of the leaves and placed then between the foam and the final paper.

The indents left in the foam are really fun, but you cannot really keep them that white because of the dragging effect of the Infusions.

The white spaces left are enough to make the stamping pop whilst looking integrated. The stamping would have been a lot easier with a stamping platform though!

I was hesitating between black and brown ink for the stamps and tried a combo here but finally settled on brown as I though the back was too harsh.

Once I was happy my technique was working, I scaled up to A3 paper. I ended up putting the foam directly on a plastic sheet on the table...

I think marbling is a bit addictive: each print gives you new idea you just need to try so you can only have a full play session and end up with a big pile of marbled papers. I decided to go classic and use mine for a book covering.

One book uses the masked and stamped leaves paper. I really like how the marbling and stamping work together.

For the other book, I used a more randomly patterned paper where I used the brown "recycled" foam. To make the brown spots more interesting, I added the "bubbles" stamp from ECF06.

As they are also papered inside, these books were a good way to put a dent into my marbled papers pile!

I also have all the masking leaves, now marbled, that I have to find a use for!

Paper marbling using shaving foam is a fun and engaging craft and doing it with Infusions creates unique looks easily. Here I used only Infusions but I'm sure they can be mixed with paints or other inks for even more variations and textures for all type of uses. I hope you give it a try!

Stay creative!
Dounia