Customer Reviews

Suminagashi: The Japanese Art of Marbling : A Practical Guide

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Even the name, 'spilled ink,' has a Japanese sense of self-deprecation about it. Don't be fooled: this simple and elegant art deserves the most serious respect.

Western marbling uses a thickened medium to support the inks. Suminagashi, instead, relies on the fluidity of water's surface to create its delicate drifting marks. It differs from Western marbling also in that it tends towards a limited palette, often being executed with black ink only. The results, however, go far past the Western style in delicacy and complexity. Suminagashi can fill the paper with marks as vivid and dense as marbled paper's. It can also create airy, open patterns as pale as morning mist, the kind that sit well under calligraphy or drawing.

Best of all, suminagashi is simpler in tools, materials, and process than its Western relative. You can try it yourself with only a shallow pan, ink, and a little detergent. Even kids can get good results within their first few tries, and get enough different results to hold their interest.

The basic simplicity of the craft takes nothing away from the masterworks of the craft's finest artisans. There is infinite subtlety in the play of ink and surface. The samples shown here are breathtaking. The book's value, though is in letting you create images of your own.

Go ahead. It's quite an experience seeing the films of ink forming on the water; it's almost magical to capture them on paper for yourself.

//wiredweird