Getting out of my car yesterday in the rain, I looked down to see an odd puddle that had a rather serious amount of motor oil floating on top. Strangely enough, the various colors swirling around resembled an animal.

All at once, something occured to me. Why not create a matrix of tiny jets just below the surface of a large area of smooth water and selectively release just a tiny bit of oil in such a way as to make an "oil painting" on top of the water? Computer controlled as necessary.

Note to environmental types (myself included)... I'm not suggesting this one for natural bodies of water... this one is for man-made art purposes only.
-- zigness, Dec 09 2004

For bristolz: It's Marble-ous, Darlink! http://www.stampin.com/tips/marble.htm
How to make marbled paper at home. [jurist, Dec 10 2004]

Slick.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 10 2004


Could the oil be on fire, raging, and frothing like the sea from whence it came?
-- mensmaximus, Dec 10 2004


Painting with structural color. Hmm.
-- bristolz, Dec 10 2004


Carefully lay a large sheet of paper on top of your finished "oil on water painting" so that it floats on the surface, then lift it out and allow to dry flat. You'll have a permanent record of the artistic image you created, just like the way fancy marbled paper is made.
-- jurist, Dec 10 2004


Is that how marbling is printed? I had always assumed that the paper was in the water below the ink layer and gently pulled up through the ink. I guess that would make a mess, though.
-- bristolz, Dec 10 2004


I was waiting in a shopping centre car park the other day and there were very few cars around and i was looking at the stains that were left in the spaces by anonymous cars that had leaked oil onto the concrete. Its amazing to think that these things leak all over the place. I thought about photographing the blotches and seeing if there were any mysterious faces or signs from the otherside trying to tell us something in some spooky way.
-- benfrost, Dec 11 2004


Brilliant...although these art pieces could only be laid horizontal, but thats not an issue, I imagine entering a gallery where people stand surrounding a piece on the floor similar to street art. And what [mensmaximus] said witht the fire. Including one type of oil thats flamable, and the rest non. The fire would just dance around the water enhancing the image, different types of oils would burn different colors. adding dyes to the water would change the background color, and hide away all the spophisticated water jets and what not. I would love to see this done [+]
-- shinobi, Dec 11 2004


Burning, rising, marbled, oily bubbles.
-- FarmerJohn, Dec 11 2004


Well, I'd add ten lbs. of aluminum 'sprinkles', add a sound system hooked up to a servo amp that drives a water pump feeding the centre of the pool. Three projectors hooked up to an audio colour organ aim down on the pool in a dark room. With lighter fluid the bubbles may be higher. This suggestion was loosely based on my experiment of bouncing lit lighter fluid on an aluminum foil coated speaker cone. I should have added some water.
-- mensmaximus, Dec 11 2004


I started building one of these in 1989! Great minds think alike? I only completed the small prototype of the pool and the eraser/oil-recycling section before leaving that employer. It was a shallow black water-filled tray which continually overflowed into another narrow tray around the border. Tiny oil droplets falling from above would create brilliant rainbow explosions, then be swept off the edges where the oil built up and could be pumped around for another go. For best effect, the optics are important: the water must look dark (use a black-painted pool,) and the pool must be positioned near a brilliantly lit white wall. Because the oil droplets expand rapidly, it works more as a dynamic "fireworks" sculpture rather than a display device for detailed images.
-- wbeaty, Jul 30 2006



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