Welcome back to Art Lab! Today I’m going to show you how to make some fun marbled art inspired by some this gorgeous art prompt!
Technique: Marbling
Art Prompt:
Wow. Aren’t those marbled canvases just stunning? I’m going to show you how to create your own mini marbled masterpiece using just acrylic paint and a toothpick! (I’m afraid they won’t look quite the same as the canvases above, but… XD 😉 )
Step 1:
Spread a layer of paint on your paper (heavy paper such as cardstock works best). Make your layer nice and “juicy” but not too thick.
Step 2: Pour or drip a little bit of different colored paint onto your base paint. Here I added a drop of purple and pink-purple (which was already kind of marbled together in my palette).
Step 3: This is the fun part! Drag your toothpick through the paint to marble it. It works best if you drag through the paint without scraping the paper underneath. I chose to drag from the center point out which made a beautiful starburst pattern!
Here are a few other marbling suggestions:
Start with four different colors:
Go wild with your toothpick! Swirl it, drag it, move it up and down and side to side…
Make a swirly pattern by drawing a spiral with your toothpick:
Isn’t this neat? I put a drop of white down, then purple, then white again, and dragged the white outwards to make a star-ish shape. Then I dropped some white and purple spots around. Beautiful!
You can even make marbled hearts:
Start with a few drops of paint close together on a contrasting color…
Then drag your toothpick through the drops vertically: (Sorry, this example didn’t turn out too well, but trust me, it looks really neat when it works! 😛 The top two hearts are what they’re supposed to look like.)
If you swirl the paint in your palette before dropping it onto your paper, you can get more blended designs:
Or you can simply drop paint onto paint:
The paint may take a while to dry since it’s pretty thick. When it’s completely dry you can hang up your canvas/sign your art, or make a “sampler” ATC of your experiments!

What do you think? Have you marbled with paint before? I love seeing how each piece turns out – they’re so different but so beautiful.
***Allison***
This is so pretty!
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Thank you so much, Josie!
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This is really neat! I think I might try it…
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Yay! 😀 Thanks, Gracie!
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This is literally the best painting technique I’ve seen by far. I’ve got to try this when I get the chance, absolutely stunning.
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Wow, thank you soooo much! I’m super glad you liked it!
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Aw you’re welcome 🙂
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Wow. It’s great!
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Aww, thanks!
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😊
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Beautiful! That’s an awesome technique!
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Thanks so much, Lily!
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That’s so pretty! I love how colorful it is. Do you mind if I use it as the background on an ATC I’m making for the next ArtLab post? 🙂
-Clara ❤
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Thank you so much! Um, what do you mean by using it as the background? You mean print it out or something? Yeah, that would probably be fine as long as you liked to my post. 🙂
Thanks, Clara!
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I mean using this tutorial to paint a background for an ATC. 🙂 Thanks!
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Oh, of course! Heh heh. XD That would be absolutely fantastic! 😀
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LOVE IT! 😍
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Thank you so much!
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Those are so beautiful!! I’m at a smidge of a roadblock with my WordCrafters story, so I’ll try to get it posted ASAP. Thanks for being so patient!
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Thanks so much, Bella! Aww, that’s a bummer. 😦 I hate it when that happens. 😡 I hope you’ll be able get some creative juices flowing here soon, and I can’t wait to read your chapter! 😀
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Aww, thanks, Allison!
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😀
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Wow, that’s really cool! Your ATCs are very pretty. 🙂
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Thanks so much, Christian Homeschooler!
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I LOVED this! This was so creative and AWESOME!!! AHHH! I want to go buy a canvas and make a big one! MUST DO IT!!!!!!!! Ahem. Anyway, uh… oh yeah, great job Allison! You always have the most interesting a creative posts! 😀
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YAY! I’M SO GLAD TO HEAR THAT, LIVY! Tell me if you make one! 😀 That would be really neat…
Aww, thanks so much, Livy! ♥
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Thanks for sharing this! I’m homeschooling my kids, and I am going to do this with them. 🙂
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You’re quite welcome! I’m glad you liked it. 🙂 Yep, this would be a fun thing to do with kids!
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WOW! THAT IS SO CRAZY!! I really REALLY want to try this! :O 🙂 😀 WOW! SO COOL! Mom does that with her homemade soap, but I didn’t think about doing it with paint! :O
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Hee hee! I’m glad you liked it, K. A.! Ooh, that’s neat! Yeah, you can marble a lot of things – even polymer clay!
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No prob! 😀 🙂 Yeah.. I LOVE marbling it! 🙂 Only I usually just get two colors and roll them out, and then twist them together and make a ball out of that- it’s so fun!!!
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Yeah! I know, marbled clay is so pretty.
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😀 Uh-huh!
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