Art of Paint Marbling by Rene Eisenbart

Art of Paint Marbling (The Art of)

by Rene Eisenbart

The Art of Paint Marbling takes you through all the tools, techniques, and tips you need to create your own marbled artwork.

*2022 Creative Book Awards winner for Best Drawing & Painting Book*

Closely following the successful The Art of Paint Pouring and its follow-up, The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & SpinThe Art of Paint Marbling features a similarly easy-to-follow format and appealing aesthetic.

Paint marbling is a contemporary technique with a long history. What started hundreds of years ago has evolved into a fun, modern art form that’s popular on YouTube and has been hailed as a trend by The New York Times.

Nowadays, paint marbling uses a base of thickened water, onto which paint is poured and then swirled. Dipping paper directly into the paint creates beautiful, abstract art that’s easy to do at home using minimal, affordable supplies.

Using step-by-step projects with thorough instructions, artists can use a variety of techniques to manipulate colored paint into intricate patterns and create marbled artwork on a variety of surfaces, including paper, cloth, and wood panels.

Large, beautiful, and colorful photos accompany all of the projects and techniques. Paint marbling serves as a fun hobby for beginners, a new art form for more advanced artists looking for alternative techniques, and a family activity perfect for artists young and old.

With The Art of Paint Marbling, you can learn to use paper, paint, and water to create your own on-trend artwork!

Reviewed by annieb123 on

5 of 5 stars

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Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Art of Paint Marbling is a comprehensive workshop tutorial course by Rene Eisenbart. Due out 9th March 2021 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 144 pages and will be available in paperback format.

Walter Foster books (familiar to generations of art students) are well made, instructive, and attractively priced. This book seems to be based around a marbling workshop and the instructions and tutorial sections including the techniques are well arranged, well explained, inspirational, and jaw-droppingly beautiful.

The book progresses from an introduction, including tools and supplies selection, some color theory, and beginning techniques, through specific patterns (freeform, combed, and advanced). There are some suggestions for further exploration, but the bulk of the book is given to very specific, well photographed tutorials for marbling paint on paper/fabric. Additional resources include a really useful short photographic troubleshooting guide with causes and how to avoid them in future, resource and suppliers list (aimed at readers in North America, but useful for readers elsewhere), and a glossary, but no index (at least not in the eARC provided for review).

This is a very useful and accessible tutorial guide and I recommend it highly for printmakers, artists, papercrafters, journalers, bookbinders quilters, and allied craftspeople. It would also be appropriate for kids with some adult help. Some supplies might need specialist suppliers. Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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  • Started reading
  • 21 February, 2021: Finished reading
  • 21 February, 2021: Reviewed