What each pattern hides.

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I like combing, I admit it. I like it so much, that a friend call me “the child of the combs”, perfect for my almost 50. With these precedents it’s reasonable to presume that any paper I marble must have a comb, even several, in his design. So in a very natural way I tried applying the last innovations I had discovered, which I have described in a previous entry, to the combs, to my dear combs. What I never thought that I was going to find was a variant of a model that I tried time behind, a variation that can be applied to any comb with different results and that also, by a fantastic mistake, was going to allow to bring me, how would I say? … in the intimacy of marbling. And know his appearance without any color.


I started by timidly trying to replicate the movement of the comb with the ox water, with these results:











I tried to distribute also the design in independent slices:








I liked very much seeing how the channels that the ox water opens can be used to throw new colors and to arrange interesting tonalities:









That can be made also in horizontal:





And, why not?... in both senses:









Suddenly I remembered. Art Nouveau. A design that time ago I had tried to make having always scandalous defeats. I looked for and found between my books this reproduction:





Something like that is what I should try. It seemed to me that now I had the resources that I lacked in other attempts. Now it should be possible.





It wasn’t badly at all, but I wanted to achieve a clearer design and also to eliminate the sprinkled gilding, I like it very much, even I called it "enrich" a paper, but in this case it wasn’t wished.





Here it was. It remains already to define the branches that the ox water forms when it’s part in the paper. But, sometimes, various steps can be passed simultaneously. So I decided also to dispel the margins.





It was finished. By the moment. A branch, as the blue paper of the title, and two branches, as the last one. Enough without any doubt. But I am not like that. Ambition dominates me. And also, concerning marbling, I even feed it. So I wanted more. And I remembered another thing that I had tried sometimes. Marbling only with gold and black. A sure combination, though the red is missed. This time I could get it.





I could even prepare several papers with different models and verify how each pattern gave a different branch, the first one, the blue paper, was feathers, the previous one a bouquet, now it come gothic and wavy thorns:








I am sure that every design gives a different branch. Every model hides a surprise. But I did not want to choke. The same happens to me with the books that I like the more. I take centuries in finishing reading them because I want that they last eternally. With the papers it had to be the same. Four variants are a good heap. And I had also two colors to do. So it remains only to marble and marble. I would already experiment further on with other patterns. With time I could experiment with so many patterns that it was satisfactory for me only to think on it.


But sometimes mistake arises. I do not dislike being wrong. I learn from my mistakes. Every day I am learning a lot. And I try to take advantage. To know, at least, what I must not do. What happens this time was that my mistake... was a gift.

I was marbling one of these golden papers, I was washing it, the gold disappeared I didn’t know why... and there it was…the X-ray of a marbled pattern.... what is really each pattern without any ornament.





I understood quickly the reason of my mistake and I could do more X-rays, the truth is that I am curious; I wanted to look a little more, I wanted to see the aspect of each branch, of each pattern...





The following bouquet, which goes to be the last paper of this entry, was fantastic for me. I was feeling as if my loved, I admit also that I am in love with my work, had accepted me. Marbling is very elusive, I know perfectly this, it only gives his best face when it wants, not when one needs it. But now marbling said yes. I have been admitted to the intimacy of marbling. I love marbling. But, somehow, I felt myself corresponded.