Marbling inspiration and beginning

After a long work day working with color and finishes on leather in the late 60s early 70s Chris noticed how drops of color on metal lids and containers left interesting patterns. Chris started to play with these chemical reactions on paintcan lids and it evolved over time to some very interesting and beautiful images. *One lid I wanted to show here that looked very much like a marbled pattern has faded and the scanner didn't pick up the blue colors but I may find a slide at some point so I show another one instead on the left. In the meantime it looked like this pattern on paper to the right he eventually achieved and which had let him into marbling when he saw papers in a Bookbinding class. To work with colors like that totally inspired him and the search was on for information.

*After several days I did find a copy of the original paintcan lid that resembled marbling and which I now added to the top of this revised blog. When he showed the lid to a bookbinder he asked Chris "Are you a Marbler?" and Chris asked "What is marbling?" The rest is history.

I don't need to go into detail how long it can take to accomplish beautiful papers without much information available, sheer trial and error, over and over again for many years. So once again after a long day trying, often with frustrating results Chris played. The results I saw in the evenings coming home from work. To my dismay he had cut up some photographs of mine "without" permission. His smile made me forgive him.
Sometime later he showed the pieces to a Printing teacher at a University and he was quite impressed and encouraged him to continue. Three of the four he made are shown here.











Three are on paper and one he marbled on a plastic frame with the photo attached to the back, it doesn't show up too well to include here.
During those first years of marbling in the early 70s he met a Special effects Director who had been involved in the making of the 2001 Space Odyssey and he told Chris about the filming of the secret marbling done in London shown at the end of the film. He asked Chris to do some experimentations for cloud effects. Chris used colors in a deep tank of water, one of the results you can see below. However, this project was brief but Chris ended up working there for a while longer organizing, cleaning and assisting the creative Staff. When work stopped as it does on projects with Studio work I urged Chris to get back to marbling full time, pursuing what he hoped to achieve.