Ebru? What is it?

Hi all,
today I would like to present very interesting technics of decorating called Ebru




Just a small pre-story:

Today is my birthday and my working colleague from Turkey prepared a very special gift. At first I couldn't identify, what was the picture made of, but then I recognized, that it was a ceramic tile with very tasty oriental flower design on it. That was Ebru decoration.

So, what is EBRU or Turkish marbling?

Besides Turkish women name, "Ebru" stands for special technique of paper/tile marbling.
The meaning of "ebru" is not really clear, but some specialists say  it comes from:
1) ancient Persian language,where this word means "Cloud and Wind"
2) Ottoman language it means "Clouded Paper" or "Colorful"
3) some other sources say that the meaning of "Abri" (Ebru) is "Pure Water" or "Clean Water"

This technique can be also found in Japanese calligraphy, where it is called Suminagashi, which means "floating ink" (I hope:) and in Chinese "Four Treasures of the scholar's study" (10th century), where are notions of decorative paper called 流沙箋 meaning “drifting-sand” or “flowing-sand notepaper".

I will not make an essay on history, because this technique is too old and it's origin is not to be found in sand of ages. If it will interest you, you can always find a lot of materials on Internet (thanks God we have it... or Wikipedia makes you Brain king).
However I would like to make a note about used materials, which are very interesting.

So, what do you need for making Ebru?
First of all you need water. But the water has a secret in it. It should be dense liquid, which will not let the color pigments to spread all over. To dense the water Turkish artists uses tragacantha, natural gum, or ox bile (which smells really bad and have to be added to boiling water).

Secondly you need a tub, where you will poor the water and let it stay for about 24 hours. Size of tubs that are used today is 35x50cm and A3 paper sizes. The depth is 4-6 cm.

Pigments: they are all natural and preparation recipes are guarded by generations.

Brushes are made of horse hair and  rose branches.

This art is very complex and it is difficult to find words to describe it, so I recommend: just watch the video and plunge in simple and accurate gestures of ebru-master Seyit UYGUR

It is just perfect.