Ebru art

Marbling begins first with the dissolving in water of tragacanth, a white material derived from a plant which grows in Anatolia. A type of gum, tragacanth gives the water a degree of viscosity. A vessel with the approximate dimensions of the paper to be marbled is filled with this liquid to depth of about six centimeters. At the same time, earth-based dyes in various colors are thoroughly crushed with a specially-shaped pestle on a marble slab and are reduced to powder. Each of these dyes is placed in a separate glass jar and mixed with a small amount of water. Into each is added five ten drops of ox bile (previously boiled to prevent it from spoiling). When added to the water of the dyes, this material spreads on the surface (not unlike olive oil) and it ensures that the dyes superimposed on one another do not become mixed. These liquefied dyes are removed from their jars one after another by means of special coarse horsehair brushes and sprinkled onto the tragacanth solution. Each of the dyes added spread one onto the other producing attractive figures. With the marbling vessel, a sheet of an appropriate absorbent paper with exactly the same dimensions as the vessel is placed, and an image of the all the dyes on the surface of the water is absorbed by the paper. Next the paper is removed and left to dry, while the vessel is ready for another marbling. In this way, hundreds of marblings may be made, but with time the dyes in the vessel slowly become grainy, at this point, dyes (mostly blue ones) prepared with turbot bile rather than ox bile are added in the exact center of the vessel until they have spread over the entire surface.