Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Elusive Spanish Moire...


This week, a friend of mine posted the above photo of a book in his family's collection. He had not seen this pattern of marbled paper before and was  intrigued...as he should be! This is probably the most sought after pattern used for bookbinding paper....the Spanish Moire!

Examples of Spanish Moire




Photo from "Marbling- A Complete Guide to Creating Beautiful Patterned Papers and Fabrics" by Diane Vogel Maurer with Paul Maurer
Marbled paper is made by placing drops of color onto a thickened bath of chemicals and water.
The more elaborate patterns of marbled paper can have up to 15-20 steps, using handmade combs and rakes.

Marbleart.us
The basis of the Spanish Moire is the Spanish wave....easier to manipulate, but not for the beginner, the paper is gently rocked as it is lain on the surface of the bath, thus producing the lines- or waves.

Marbleart.us
These papers are hard enough to produce, but the Spanish Moire adds another step to the process....





You have to fold the paper in a certain way before you lay it on the marble bath...while gently rocking the paper...and tilting the bath!!! The paper above was made by marbler Iris Nevins and is from the book "Marbled Designs-A Complete Guide to Fifty-Five Elegant Patterns" by Patty Schleicher and Mimi Schleicher.

Iris Nevins photo


Iris uses parts of the Spanish Moire process and isolates the ripples or waves.


This is an example of Spanish Moire, with the almost three dimensional look of waves and ripples.

This is Spanish Moire at it's best! The design is distorted, shifted into almost a topographical map. Only the best marblers can produce this amazing look.


Similar to the Spanish Moire is this form of Suminigashi. Color is applied to the bath and then blown on and manipulated with a stylus into the more linear design above.






You can see that suminigashi is used for the background of this asian design.

Falling in love with marbling yet? You can get some wonderful reproductions in the John Derian line now featured in Target stores.


Just check the stationary section for some beautiful organizers covered with traditional examples of marbled papers!


Thanks to Steve Shriver for his passion and curiosity of the arts and thanks to Regina Garay for linking him to a previous post I made on marbling! Love you guys!!

12 comments:

patrickgracewood said...

Wow, Theresa, once again you've dazzled and enlightened me before noon! and also proved that interesting special effects have been around long before computers. They're so lovely!

Gina said...

Dear Theresa,

Fantastic pictures. A fabulous post. Thanks for sharing.

One can use the images as pattern guides and use acrylic paints mixed with a lot of "Floetrol" to glide the colors across thin white paper with torn-up cardboard pieces. The effect is not the same, of course, but is lots of fun and can be used wherever special paper is desired.
See my post of March 29, 2010 for examples.
Gina

Regina at Fauxology said...

So amazing to read about the art along with seeing the images. I loooooove your blog... :) P.S. Thank you for the "shout out" -- I'm glad Steve put the query up!

Gina said...

Hi Theresa, In my comment I gave the wrong date. It should be my blogpost of August 17, 2009, which shows the marbled paper done with Floetrol and acrylic paints. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Gina

Karena said...

Theresa, if you only new how much you inspire me and the knowledge of the arts you impart to us.

Fabulous post!

xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena

My Castle in Spain said...

thank you for introducing me to the Spanish moiré (exquisite phrase)and wave, Theresa! most beautiful marbled paper, especially the Japanese one...
Have a great inspiring week end!

Ann said...

Hi Theresa,

We just returned from Italy and I saw plenty of marbled papers, but none as exquisite!

Wonderful post, but then aren't all of yours? :]

-Ann

Alan said...

Theresa; I saw Steve's post too and it had me wondering. Now you've answered it for me; I had no idea how these papers were created. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I love that your artistic curiosity goes beyond the traditional boundaries of the 'decorative painter'.

Shandell's said...

Marble papers have been a favorite of mine for years. I have a drawer full of antique book end papers waiting to be made into lampshades. I am finding that there has been a new found interest for these papers. I am so glad to see the art exposed to the world for all to love. Your post on Spanish moiré is fabulous. Love to read your blog.

scooter said...

Hey, Theresa - just thought it was time to pop on here and say "Awesome blog!" I follow it almost daily...always looking forward to your posts. You know I love the marbling stuff - and this is just mind-blowing!

Cleta

Mark D. Ruffner said...

What a beautiful posting! I wish books still had such marbleizing for book end papers. I was fortunate enough to find an old folio with marbled paper, and I've saved it to use as a back-matting for a favorite drawing. Mark

Steve Shriver said...

Thanks Theresa for this fabulous follow up- really expanded my knowledge of this art form. I'll put a link to it on my original post so people can jump to it here.
PS- the link on my name goes to my old watercolor site made in 2000- I really need to update that site!

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