What Not to Do When Paper Marbling...

Okay, so I admit to a certain resistance on my part to reading directions. I mean, then you know where you're going, and, who likes that. This did color our paper marbling experience to some degree but it was still a blast if utterly (almost) unsuccessful. One bucket, some water, the colors of the rainbow, and a handful of excitable artists set the scene. First we just dropped some colors in and watched them spin in dizzy mystical patterns right to the bottom of the bucket (not what it's supposed to do). Ooh. Harry Potteresque? We loved the organic movement, the colors, but, well, the colors were kind of supposed to stay put on the surface of the water. That's when Faith, who had actually been reading the directions while I gave this ill-conceived demo, said we were supposed to touch the dye to our fingertips and touch the water. This technique yielded slightly better, but still woeful, results and most of us went back to squeezing random colors in the water to see the swirly patterns. This is when we first introduced paper into the paper marbling process and, well, you can see the results...

Not good. And, what's worse, it ruined our bath of beautiful colors and turned it into a muddy mess. Faith, undeterred, continued to read the directions.








Oil! Use a small amount of oil (What is this an Italian recipe? Where's the precision?) and add it to the water. Yes, brilliant, we thought, because oil sits on the surface of water and then our dyes, accurately dropped onto the oil beads, will also remain on the surface of the water.

No. I mean, it does have that cool, I dropped my pizza on this look, but come on, what were they thinking?

This went on. In the end we had a handful of entertaining/strange creations and a fiery determination to actually learn how to paper marble, or better yet, purchase the brand that actually works. Boku-Undo Innovative Marbling Dye - what's up? Your pointers and techniques failed us. I will have to resort to that busted up old box of marbling dyes in the print studio.

-Melissa