Ebru — Marbling Paper on a Tragacanth Bath

Put 20 grams of gum tragacanth into 5 litres of water and leave it overnight. Tragacanth dissolves slowly — it will not be hurried, and stirring does not speed it up.

The next day, strain it through a fine cloth. Undissolved lumps get under the paint in the tray and spoil the pattern.

It should be like thin honey. Dip a finger and lift it out: if the liquid runs off without threading it is too thin; if it stretches in strands it is too thick. Adjust by diluting or by leaving it to stand.

Pour the tragacanth water into the tray to a depth of 5 cm. The tray should be 5 cm larger than the paper on every side.

Lay a sheet of newspaper flat on the surface and lift it straight off. Dust and bubbles stick to the paper and the surface is left clean. Do this before every single ebru.

Grind the earth pigment with water in a mortar until it is a smooth paste. Coarse particles will not stay on the surface — they sink.

Add 5 to 10 drops of ox gall to each colour and stir. The gall is what makes the paint open out on the surface. Paint without gall does not spread — it gathers and sinks.

Flick on a single drop and watch. If it barely opens, add more gall. If it opens so far that it shoves the other colours to the edge, there is too much — add a little more pigment to that colour. Every colour wants a different amount of gall.

Dip the brush in the paint and scatter it by tapping the brush lightly against your finger or a stick held over the tray. Do not let the brush touch the water — if it does, it digs a hole in the surface.

Scatter the remaining colours in turn. Each new colour pushes the previous one aside and opens out in rings. The order matters — the colour you scatter last sits most vividly on top.

Dip the awl into the surface and draw it slowly. First parallel lines in one direction, then in the opposite direction — that gives the combed pattern. Draw slowly; pull it fast and the colours blend into mud.

Hold the paper by two corners, touch one edge down first, then lower it slowly from the middle outward. Drop it flat and air is trapped underneath, leaving that area blank.

Take one corner and draw the paper off against the edge of the tray. Dragging it over the rim scrapes off the excess tragacanth. Do not lift it straight up — the paint will run.

Lay it flat somewhere and let it dry. Do not wash it — the paint is held to the paper along with the tragacanth, and water will take it away.

Two substances pulling against each other. The whole physics of ebru is that tragacanth and gall work in opposite directions. Tragacanth thickens the water and raises its surface tension, so the paint does not sink and will sit there for hours willing to take a shape. Ox gall does exactly the reverse: it lowers the surface tension of the paint, so a drop opens and spreads on contact. Without gall the colours drop to the bottom; with too much, one colour drives the others to the edge. The craft is holding that balance separately for every colour.

The tools. The traditional brush is horsehair bound to a rose twig — rose is chosen because it does not bleed resin and does not taint the bath. The tray is knot-free pine; a knot weeps resin and ruins the water surface. The paints are earth and mineral in origin — ochres, oxides, lapis lazuli, malachite — each ground by hand in a mortar.

Why the gall is boiled. Ox gall is an organic substance and will spoil if left as it is. Boiling makes it keep. The old masters aged their gall, and say that gall which has stood works better.

The origins are disputed. The oldest securely dated Turkish ebru examples are from the 16th century; the art itself is very probably older and came by way of Central Asia and Iran. Japanese suminagashi also floats colour on water, but by a different route — it uses ink and a different surface chemistry, and it is a separate tradition. Be wary of any source that states flatly where ebru "came from".

Why it was used on documents. In the Ottoman world marbled paper was not only decorative. Because every pattern is unique, ebru was applied to the backs of official documents and deeds — the pattern could not be reproduced, which made forgery difficult. Ebru was a security measure before it was a beauty.

Once only. The moment you lay the paper on the surface the pattern transfers to it and that pattern is gone from the tray. You cannot set up the same one again. "Each one is unique" is not a marketing line about ebru; it is the physics of the process.