Losing your Marbles: Make your own Marbled Wallpaper with Natascha Maksimovic

Natascha Maksimovic is a QEST Scholar and marbling artist based in Margate. Inspired by the Japanese art form of Suminagashi marbling, Maksimovic pushes the technique into new territory, creating bold, expansive artworks and wallpapers that fuse heritage with modernity.

“To me, Suminagashi marbling is memory in motion; I capture fleeting moments of the past, using them as a foundation to push my craft forward, exploring uncharted techniques and creating expansive, evolving landscapes that reflect my artistic journey,” she says.

Maksimovic transitioned from the film industry to develop her own practice, bringing a love of imagery, craftsmanship, and storytelling into her work. Her distinctive marbling style has led to award-winning designs, including Best Wallpaper at the Homes & Gardens Awards 2024. She was also awarded the prestigious QEST scholarship grant to develop sustainable botanical inks. Her book, Paper Marbling: Learn in a Weekend, published in 2024, includes easy-to-follow projects showing how marbled paper can elevate crafts and interiors alike.

Especially for Selvedge readers, Natascha Maksimovic's shares an edited 'how-to' extract from her book Paper Marbling: Learn in a Weekend.

How to Make your Own Marbled Wallpaper

Creating your own wallpaper may seem daunting, but I would like to introduce you to an achievable and enjoyable way of making beautiful bespoke designs.  Wallpapers originated in the 16th century and were first used to decorate the insides of cupboards and smaller rooms. They were printed in monochrome on small sheets of paper, and it wasn’t until much later that these single sheets were joined together to form the long rolls that we know today. It is this traditional tiling technique that allows you to handle manageable paper sizes that will fit into a paddling pool for printing.

This project will be most suitable for decorating cupboards, small rooms, and single walls. When assembling the sheets of marbled tiles, I like to place them on the floor to create the final composition. 

There is no right or wrong way to arrange them; it’s an instinctive process to create harmony between colour and pattern. You can apply matte decorator’s varnish to protect your wallpaper and make it more durable once installed, especially in high-traffic areas. It will also prevent the colours from fading, especially in areas with direct sunlight. The marbling ink used for this wallpaper is oil-based.

What You Will Need:

• Lining paper, pre-cut into lengths a little longer than your finished tile size (see box below)

• Marbling inks

• Paddling pool

• String line and pegs for drying

• Marbled lining-paper pieces

• Cutting mat

• Long metal ruler 

• Craft knife

• Pencil

• Adhesive putty

• Plumb line

• Stepladder

• Wallpaper adhesive 

• Wide brush

• Wallpaper smoothing tool

• Kitchen paper

Tile Size

Lining paper is available in rolls of different widths and lengths. The printed tiles that you hang will be trimmed squares that are determined by the width of your lining-paper roll. For example, the width of the lining paper used on the following pages was 54cm, so the tiles were trimmed to 54 x 54cm squares. Calculate roughly how many tiles you will need to cover the area you would like to cover. Allow for some extras, as you may want to swap some in and out to create the finished composition.

Printing the Wallpaper

1. Set-up

Place the paddling pool in an area where you have enough space to work. Fill it about 5cm deep with tepid water. Have the pre-cut lining-paper pieces and your chosen inks nearby. Start to apply the inks to the water...

(...)

Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog. 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT

OR...to continue reading….


Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue.

-

Image Credits: All photo's courtesy of Natascha Maksimovic and credited to Charles Emerson.