Ebru — Water as Canvas
Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer
This past Sunday, my colleague Shiraz and I went to an Iftar dinner put on by the Northern Lights Society, a Turkish-based interfaith group based in the Twin Cities. Iftar is the meal that breaks the fast for the day during Ramadan. The meal included various speakers from the community, as well as a video presentation of Ebru, a Turkish form of painting on water with dyes.
Also referred to as paper marbling, Ebru is a process of dripping dyes upon water, shaping the colors in every which way with various tools and finally, transferring the final composition to paper that is laid over the water. Upon contact the dyes cleave to the paper, leaving the water blank as in the beginning, thus, each print is one-of-a-kind. In the video, you will see the transfer to paper take place at 8:33. Yılmaz Eneş, an ebru artist, has a great Web site including videos and some beautiful images in his gallery.
