Archive for the ‘paper marbling’ Category

Interesting post today from Social Media Examiner, and I think I need to share this, if only so that I can better understand what’s what with giveaways.

Evidently it’s not as easy to do giveaways and promotions on Facebook, and in general there are a lot of guidelines to follow – which I think most of us small businesses do, just as a matter of ethics. Requiring people to “like” a page or become “fans” or do anything changes the rules and makes this a contest, as opposed to a give-away. If you read the comments in the article on Social Media, you’ll find a lot of confusion, especially as regards to doing this on Facebook.

When you read the “Promotions” guidelines on Facebook, (and we’ve all done that, right???), you’ll notice that what many of us have been doing doesn’t seem to fit those guidelines. I think most of us with some sort of fiber giveaway to celebrate milestones – a certain number of fans, reaching a major number of blogs – do so with pure intent – like this and you could win something. We just need to be aware of what we’re doing and make sure everything that we need to do according to federal guidelines, we are.

It’s similar to the FTC guidelines about bloggers promoting an item where they receive a commission – we need full disclosure that we get paid to do this. If you start looking at your spam, you’ll notice a lot of it doesn’t have actual names and addresses at the end of emails to tell you exactly where all this is coming from. More and more sites (mine included) let you know that there are products we promote for which we may receive a commission. That’s how affiliate marketing works, and that’s a great source of passive income for many of us.

So here’s what I’m going to do. When I hit a milestone that I’ve set, I’ll do a giveaway of goodies.  I’ll mention on Facebook that it’s happening, but you won’t need to do anything except head over to read the blog – which hopefully you’re doing anyway.  Any giveaway will run solely through my blog – after I continue to read up on the in’s and out’s of this. I’m interested in your thoughts on this topic.

Boring, huh?  Here’s some eye candy to make up for it (although ya gotta admit this is important information). Enjoy the marbled papers.

A friend called on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago to let us know of a bookbinder’s conference in Tucson, with great marbled papers. We headed over to the Radisson to find the annual Guild of Bookworkers Conference. Oh, my, the marbled papers were scrumptious. One of the marblers was from New Mexico, Pamela Smith, and her work was amazing.

Plus, there was another amazing lady there with marbled papers, whom I have forgotten, plus a couple of companies with really gorgeous stuff. Apologies for no names, but I did have permission to take the pictures. Hiromi Paper had a catalog that I picked up, because I’m always curious, and I found fascinating information about the art of paper making in Japan. This could lead to a serious new hobby…but right now I just want to take some of those marbling patterns and get them on cloth!

And now for the eye candy. You can click to get larger pics and see the incredible detail.

Martha Stewart on the Today Show, demonstrating “marbleizing” and promoting her new book, The Encyclopedia of Crafts. What’s wrong with this picture? Here’s a quick “Top Ten.”

1. Marbleizing? It’s called “marbling,” or “ebru” (the Turkish name), and anything else is an insult to marblers around the world.

2. Easy? Good marbling isn’t easy. This is a centuries-old art form, practiced by masters around the world. I’ve spent close to 17 years learning this art form, and I’m still learning! It was 10 years of work before we really felt we had fabric that we thought was good enough to sell commercially. Guilds used to put members to death for sharing secrets of marbling.

3. Italy? Not the birthplace of marbling, as Martha stated to a nationwide audience. Turkey is still the home to learn from the masters.

4. Paint brushes? We don’t use no stinkin’ paint brushes! Horse hair, at least! And we make ouor own!

5. Methyl cellulose? Martha stated it was fine to use, no problems, but she managed to ignore the warning that comes on the back not to inhale the stuff. Most practicing marblers use carrageenan, a natural seaweed found in many of our processed foods.

6. Recipes? Granted, it was a five-minute segment, but if you are going to encourage people to marble, as least reference recipes for an alum bath and the carrageenan bath. IT’S NOT JELLO! and a marbling bath can be very temperamental, depending on temperature and humidity.

7. Tools? Sheesh, Martha, we marblers make all our tools, and it’s time-consuming. Just because you have toothpicks and pins doesn’t mean the tools are cheap – either in price or measurements. It took us several years to collect the information and successfully make a bouquet comb.

8. Patterns? Martha, you used a toothpick to swirl a few drops of paint, and you told Meredith she was doing fine. Do you remember that Meredith disagreed with you? You didn’t lay the paper correctly, and you certainly didn’t do any of the really amazing patterns that can be had by beginners.

9. Crafts? Martha, you showed lots of applications, but bottom line? None of them were great examples of what can truly be done with marbling. At least you could have had great products.

10. How many pages? Oh, you the queen of how-to books, don’t you realize just how many books are available on marbling? Books, not pages. Art, not craft. Love, not money.

This is the original of a cactus in bloom at the Gardens last weekend. It’s smaller than I would like, but it still would make a good small print. I tried a lot of different filters and cropping and adjustments, until I was satisfied with this one. This is the “dry brush” filter, and I like the effect. It would not have worked without the bright pink blossoms for contrast.

Then I decided to take one of the pieces of marbled paper and see what I could do. This is a pattern, a variation of a chevron, that we have been trying to do and having no success with. So I might as well get some mileage out of this piece of paper. One example is the dry brush, after some color adjustments, and now I have a piece that could work with water. It seems like once we get a really good background we can then play with possibilities for a foreground image.

Here is a different chevron pattern. I did a lot of different filters and wasn’t satisfied. I reoriented it and was somewhat happier. I need to go back to some earlier lessons and review how to get a basic line drawing to work with – evidently not the “sharpen” filter – I think it’s the “blur” and then an “inverse.”

Then I really went to town with copying pieces of the pattern and putting them on a new layer and adjusting that layer, as well as using a few gradients. This is tentatively titled “Swimming Upstream.”