How to Create a Marbling Effect on Canvas With Acrylic Paint

Smooth gesso onto your canvas with your fingers, following the directions in the video by Sandra Scheetz Wise, an acrylic artist in Orlando, Florida (see Additional Resources). Allow the gesso to dry. Smooth your canvas with a sanding block and coarse sandpaper. Spray the back of canvas with water as directed in the video. This provides a smooth surface and prepares your canvas for painting.

Look at as many marble samples as you can find. Note that marble comes in many colors and patterns in nature, which are determined by the various mineral impurities contained in a given sample.

Decide on a base color. This is the color you will mix with black and white to create multiple values. Values are shades of a color from lightest to darkest.

Start with an amount of paint that will cover the entire surface you intend to use--in this case, an artist's canvas. Pour or squirt out a nice sized blob of paint onto your palette. Scrape two-thirds of the blob away into another smaller blob with your palette knife. Add a blob of white paint equal to half the paint in the new, smaller blob. Mix well with your palette knife. Repeat this step, substituting black paint for white. Pull the two blobs of original color together and add more paint. You should have three approximately equal amounts of base color, lighter color and darker color.

Dip a piece of dry, natural sponge in water and squeeze nearly dry, then dab it onto a piece of dry cardboard until you get only a very faint watermark. Dip the moistened sponge into your base color, then dab it against the cardboard several times. You want to get the paint to a point where it will just barely make a mark.

Dab base color over the entire canvas, being careful not to use brush-like movements that would make smears of paint. You want to tap the sponge against the paper as if you are lightly powdering your nose.

While your first coat of paint is still damp, take a new piece of sponge, moisten it like the first, and load it with the lighter color. Tap it gently all over the canvas, in whatever pattern pleases your eye. You may even want to take a paintbrush, dip it in water, then in your chosen color, and use a roll while dragging squiggle motion to make thin lines of color all over the canvas. These will resemble the veins you see in natural marble. Repeat this step with your darkest color.

If you get too much of any one shade, go back with a lighter or darker shade and dab the sponges on the canvas again. Let it dry. From a distance, your faux marble will appear real.