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Marmor Paperie - A5 Hand Marbled Journal - Suminagashi on Linen
Pre-order: delivery and collection from late October
This hard-back A5 journal is made with original hand-marbled half-linen bookcloth. The bookcloth was marbled using the oldest form of marbling, the beautiful Japanese art of suminagashi. This technique uses plain water as the 'canvas', whose currents twist and shape the floating ink to give it a distinctively fluid, smokey look.
Every item is unique
All Marmor Paperie books are made using original marbled covers, individually made by hand in their studio in London. Marbling is a process combining print-making, science and art, made by floating paint in a tray of thickened water and transferring it onto paper.
This means no two books are the same - so yours will not perfectly match the photos but it will be just as beautiful.
Materials & Dimensions
Each book contains 240 pages (120 leaves) of lovely ivory-toned Italian paper, with a choice of lined, blank or dot grid paper. The bookcloth makes the binding extremely durable and the ink is light-fast so the design won't fade. All our marbled papers and books are carefully handmade in our south London studio.
Size A5 - 21.5cm x 15cm x 1.9cm
Durability
This notebook is covered with a half-linen bookcloth, making it both tactile and durable. Bookcloth is hardy and practical, allowing a lot of strength and flexibility at the book's hinges - usually the part of a book under the most stress.
Marbling is now classified as Endangered on Heritage Craft's Red List as there are fewer than 10 professional marblers left in the UK. The rise of digital printing and mass production of paper has increased pressure on the traditional industrial uses for marbling. To survive, it must adapt to a fast-moving world and find contemporary audiences. Our mission is to breathe new life into this traditional craft so it can do just that.
Marmor Paperie's founder, marbler Lucy McGrath, uses methods that have barely changed for centuries. Every marbling session begins with the same ritual: a shallow dish is filled with gloopy ‘size’ (water thickened with seaweed), and paints are carefully mixed to create the right shades for the chosen design. When everything is ready, paint is dropped with brushes or pipettes onto the size.
Because of its strong surface tension, the colours spread over the surface of the size rather than dispersing throughout it. Each new paint droplet will displace the previous ones, pushing them into thin veins. Once applied, the colours are then manipulated using tools such as a bamboo stylus or comb to create intricate and elegant patterns. After the design is complete, a sheet of paper is carefully laid onto the surface. It picks up the floating paint, capturing the pattern and lifting it from the size. The final steps are to gently rinse off the 'gloop' and hang the sheet up to dry.
Once the marbled papers are dry and flattened, a template is drawn for the journal’s hard case onto the back of the sheet. It is very important that the cover displays the most beautiful parts of the pattern, so this process can require some careful consideration.
Boards are then cut to size and glued to the marbled paper and left to dry flat under a weight. The inside pages are glued into the book cover, and the assembled book is pressed for a full day to ensure that it is perfect.