Marbling with oil and food coloring is beautiful! It’s one of the easiest ways to marble paper with kids and uses materials you likely already have. We did this years ago when Maia was 3 and it was past time to give it another go.
It’s messy, but worth it.
We still LOVE marbling paper with shaving cream, but the effect is completely different with oil.
Here’s a video showing Marbling with Oil in action! And keep scrolling for more detailed instructions.
Marbling with Oil and Food Coloring
Since oil and water repel rather than mix, the oil marbling technique creates bubbles of color and white spots. Where there are oil bubbles, the water-based food coloring won’t stick to the paper.
Here’s how to use the oil marbling technique…
MATERIALS
- Vegetable oil*
- Food coloring** or liquid watercolors
- Watercolor paper or cardstock, cut into quarters
- Droppers (optional)
- Dishes and utensils (pie pan or baking dish, small cups or bowls, forks, spoons)
*Baby oil or mineral oil may work just as well, but we used vegetable oil.
**Use the liquid food coloring rather than the gel kind. We tried both and the liquid kind definitely works better. If you have liquid watercolor paint, you can use it interchangeably with the food coloring as we did.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Mix Oil and Color
Pour a small amount of vegetable oil into a dish and add food coloring.
Stir vigorously with a fork so the big drops of color are dispersed throughout the oil as smaller droplets.
Repeat with as many colors as you want to use. - Add Oil + Color Mixture to Water
Pour an inch of water, give or take, into a shallow pie pan or baking dish.
Use a dropper or spoon to transfer the oil + color mixture to the dish of water. Use one color or many.
- Marble Your Paper
Lay your paper on top of the water…
…then lift to reveal your marbled paper.
Add more colors and repeat!
After a couple of rounds, the water may be too muddy or saturated to get a pleasing effect. At that point, you can dump the water and start fresh with a new layer of clean water. (We kept a large pot in the studio for each person to dump their used water into.) - Let your marbled paper dry
Lay the newly marbled paper flat to dry.
And if have 5 people going to town with the oil marbling technique as we did, you may need to hang up some of the marbled paper after they are no longer at risk of dripping.
Note :: The paper is very oily at first, but as the artwork dries, the oil is absorbed into the paper and it no longer feels oily to the touch. Which means you can use it for notecards, DIY notebooks, buntings, and other crafts.
See this post for craft ideas and instructions –> 10 Crafts to Make from Kids Process Art
What do you think? Are you ready to give marbling with oil a try with your kids?
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25 Comments
cris
August 17, 2017 at 12:23 amLooks amazing and easy, I´m definitely gonna try this with my nieces!
Ruth
August 17, 2017 at 8:53 pmMe TOO! ?
Samantha
August 18, 2017 at 5:02 amOh .. very interesting. My daughter loves to draw or paint. I think marbling with oil and food coloring is worth to try. And I have an idea .. from this marbling, I can create a unique decoration for her birthday party. Yeah … this is a brilliant idea .. thank you for sharing this. If you want to find decorations or accessories I suggest to visit partyshop.nl; their collections are quite interesting.
Mona
August 19, 2017 at 10:57 pmWe found that our creations were mostly oil unless we 1) vigorously mixed the oil and paint (we used liquid watercolors) and 2) worked quickly so the paint didn’t sink, leaving mostly oil on the surface. Did we do something wrong?
Debi
August 20, 2017 at 6:48 amFound that most of the colour just sunk to bottom of container, resulting in an oily
piece of paper.
Jean Van't Hul
August 25, 2017 at 7:17 amHow much water did you have in your container? We found it worked best with a thin layer of water — about an inch. And that it was best to work fast after each new addition of oil + color. Also, we pressed our paper down into the water a bit rather than just setting it on the top of the water.
Lisa
April 17, 2018 at 6:15 pmSame thing happened to me!
Jean Van't Hul
August 25, 2017 at 7:18 amWe definitely mixed the oil & paint vigorously and also worked quickly, Mona. Also we pressed our paper down into the water a bit (where more of the color was).
Anna Riling
August 23, 2017 at 4:23 pmFail! I don’t know what I did wrong, but it looks less like marble than a pale stain! I’ll blame the 2.5 year old.
Jean Van't Hul
August 25, 2017 at 7:16 amPerhaps use more food coloring / liquid watercolors? Or more of the oil + color mixture, period?
Ishani
September 28, 2017 at 4:39 amI look forward to trying this at my upcoming workshop on process art. Thank you so much for sharing with detailed instructions.
Jean Van't Hul
October 2, 2017 at 4:43 pmYay! I hope you have fun with it, Ishani!
Lisa
April 17, 2018 at 6:48 pmI can’t figure out how the water based colors maintain their separate colors. Is this something you do in layers like one color at a time and then you put in next colors and dip separately for it?
Marilyn
May 2, 2018 at 10:50 amThis looked lovely, but sadly, despite following the instructions exactly, it was a flop !
The colours did not stick to the paper much at all.
Eventually we just poured the left-over coloured oils directly onto the papers and that worked better.
What did we do wrong ? Maybe we put too much water in the trays ?
Jean Van't Hul
May 3, 2018 at 9:11 amHmm. I’m not sure, Marilyn. Perhaps you need to use more food coloring?
What kind of paper did you use? If it were coated at all, it might not absorb the color.
Anita
May 10, 2018 at 9:32 pmI too met failure! Tried a number of times , had used water colors . In my case too the paper was oily with faint blotches of color . Kindly instruct about 1-how much is the oil color proportion ?( may be my oil was too much more than the color)
2- should the amount of color mixtures added to the water cover the surface of water completely ?
RC
May 15, 2018 at 3:00 amWe used cloth after trying different types of paper. We didn’t have waterpaint paper at the time.
Susan
October 14, 2020 at 11:27 amAnd…. what was the result? Thinking in that direction too. Thx!
Jaime
June 11, 2018 at 6:24 pmI used canola oil which I thought would be comparable to vegetable but the oil would not mix with the food coloring at all. Didn’t work. Thoughts? Yours look so lovely. I really want to know how to do it.
Debby Godfrey-Brown
February 4, 2019 at 12:49 pmJust dont this with afterschool club (5-9yr olds) they loved it, some were better than others, we found a thin layer of water 1/2 inch and mix oil to paint (rather than putting paint in oil) worked well, we experimented with lemon juice and washing liquid too for pattens, we all enjoyed it.
Emily
March 23, 2020 at 11:58 pmDid this today with my 2.5 year old. She was thrilled and was able to focus for probably two hours. Yes, the oil and food coloring didn’t really mix but my daughter didn’t care. We played around w the ratio and dropped the food coloring directly into the water sometimes. A fun process, even if there were some initial challenges…my daughter didn’t care, she loved the whole experience.
Jean Van't Hul
March 25, 2020 at 5:51 amYay! I’m so glad that your kiddo enjoyed this art activity! :)
Emma
March 24, 2020 at 6:22 pmI don’t have food coloring or liquid watercolor. What should I do?
Jean Van't Hul
March 25, 2020 at 5:50 amWell, this art activity really needs a water-based color or paint. So my suggestion is to wait on this one until you have one of those. In the meantime, how about trying a different art activity?
Vanessa Leggett
May 27, 2020 at 2:09 pmCan this be done on panel canvases?