Paper Marbling - An Introduction

 This week I was once again back at West Dean.  As I've said to several people it really is quite addictive.  They have such a great range of courses, the tutors are all wonderful (so far) and the atmophere is great.

 

As someone who loves making books, I've always been fascinated by marbled papers and think they are really beautiful, but I've never had a go.  I don't even remember doing this at school.  I'd seen lots on Instagram too, so when I saw West Dean were running an introductory course I jumped at the change to try it.

 

Louise our tutor was lovely, and gave us lots of information about how to marble paper successfully.  It's not quite as simple as you might think.

 

In the morning we learnt all about how to make the different patterns using combs, sticks and washing up liquid, before spending the afternoon playing and finding our style.

 

It was very messy, but I loved how immediate it was.  You could see how the pattern turned out as soon as you lifted your paper from the tray, so it was easy to learn and try again if it wasn't quite right.

 

We stopped an hour before the end of the day to tidy everything up.  This also allowed our prints time to dry, although a couple of hair dryers might have been deployed to speed things up.  We then had a bit of time to look at each others work and reflect on what had worked or not for us.

 

I was very pleased to come home with 23 prints and plenty of knowledge about how to do it at home if I think the house could deal with the mess!  The real question is, can I bring myself to use any of them?

 

If you are interested I would totally recommend this course.  Now to go wash the paint splatters off my shoes.  (The photos really don't show the wonderful metalic paints I used at all!)