Many months ago I was looking for some different craft related activities to try during my sabbatical. I came across this Dip marbling workshop and booked on. I was interested in it because of the idea of playing with colour.

There were three of us in the class so we had plenty of time with and attention from our teacher and she showed us two different styles during the class.

Attempt 1 of Suminagashi using blue and orange inks

Attempt 2 of Suminagashi using blue and green inks

Attempt 3 of Suminagashi using blue, orange and pink inks

The first method was Suminagashi, Japanese ink on water. We then moved on to Ebru marbling with acrylics over seaweed infused gloopy water.

Attempt 1 of Ebru, worked into heart shapes using oranges, whites and turquoise acrylics

Inks floating in the marbling bath before being worked into attempt 2

Work in progress, when most of the acrylics were in place but before the surface got worked.

Attempt 2 of Ebru, the finished piece on paper, using pinks, purples, blues, white and gold acrylics

Attempt 3 of Ebru, a similar palette to attempt 1 but worked into a feathered finish

I came back round to a similar palette for that third attempt, though it took me a while to settle on it. I think I was getting a bit tired by that point.

What was really noticeable here was that some of the paints behaved differently to others - some really spread out, and some didn’t, some feathered a lot, and others stayed sharp around the edges. I think it would take quite a lot of experimentation to get a predictable output.

I enjoyed the workshop. I liked the simplicity of the ink based marbling, but I loved the colour combinations of the acrylics. Now I need to work out what to do with my marbled paper.