For Diane Maurer, the origin of the universe.

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A very simple idea:
to throw only one drop of ox gall in the center of a tray full of colors and...
see what happens.

The drop is transformed, stretches up and down, and the result, frankly,
is not especially attractive.

But after doing the previous paper, I remembered at once the book of Diane Maurer:

(ISBN: 0823055752 / 0-8230-5575-2)

It is a fabulous book on marbling and its diverse techniques and also a guide for the achievement of diverse patterns. It is very much known in the United States, but also here, a student took it to one of my classes and asked me if it knew it.

Yes, of course, and not only I knew it, but, I must confess it and ask for excuses to Diane, for whom I wait that she should not bother for what I am going to say, I was distributing to my pupils photocopies of two pages that have me fascinated since I saw them.

Diane tells there how to turn a round drop of paint into diverse figures.
A butterfly, a fish, a hummingbird, stars and plants.
Step by step, like a cooking recipe.

I do not dare to repeat here my misconduct, but I include a sample so that you see of what I am speaking of.

This is what I wanted to do.
To throw a few drops of paint and to turn them into stars.
But with my ox gall instead of black.
I proposed myself to repeat all the forms that were appearing on these two pages and then to show them to Diane.

The star was not very complicated to make.

**

But when I tried the fish... what a pity.
The fact is that these things do not go out for me even with the drawing ahead.

What it went out for me looks like a stuck-up beetle.
An armoured monster.
Anything, except a fish.

You can laugh. It was what I did.
And also, after my "fish" I abandoned my photocopies.

But I kept on doing. Marbling is addictive. One cannot stop.
And better that one cannot stop, because far away from the diagrams,
figures began to appear.

A few variations on the spiral movement.

Up to arrive to something similar to a sun emerging from a blue horizon.

Of course, I went crazy with the spirals.

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I couldn’t stop doing them until galaxies were appearing.

Big ones...

... little ones...

... or doubles.

**

Now it was to my taste.
As a "fish" in the water.

I then tried with the typical concentric circles of the marbling "test".

My wife calls this paper "the kiss", she will know why.

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Spirals also can be done with this technique.

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But, when one get a move on, everything is possible.
I tried with my trees, my version of the "Art Nouveau " design, now different.

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And, making experiments, a tree and a spiral.

I am interested in the ox gall, I like playing with it.
It was necessary to try to paint the background that fascinates me in white,
because it could be that a soft background will heightening the figures.

Yes, it is like the magma where life floats.
Amoebae and protozoan.
Natural sciences of primary school. Almost I do not even remember.

**

As everything goes and comes, I kept on painting strange figures.

**

Combining the first model with which I began this text with figures in its interior...

... I realized how could be the origin of the universe...

... everything was born from floating colors...

... !marbling is the origin of the universe¡