How Not To Marble Paper

In school we have a course called 'Experimental Glass' wherein everyone chooses a topic, technique, etc. that they're interested in and they go to town with experiments. Off the bat I wanted to experiment with texture and food because I'd been getting into that over the summer, but I soon discovered that I didn't think the structure of the course went well with the way I wanted to structure experiments with texture.

So instead I decided to link my topic from my Independent Research Project up with the topic for Experimental Glass, and thus, I decided to begin experimenting with marbling paper. Marbling glass techniques already exist, but I want to marble glass in the way that paper is marbled, not by pouring some paint onto a glass plate and just swirling it around. I mean have you ever seen the insane pictures people can create by painting on water? It's amazing!

Supplies

So, tonight I tried marbling paper for the first time thinking it would be real easy. I got about two marbles out of my attempts and that's it. it's funny how something so simple, with such simple instructions, can go so wrong.

You can marble with acrylic on water, or you're supposed to be able to, and that went best, but didn't work. Gouache didn't help. Apparently water with a 'drop' of soap on top should do the trick, while I used a couple drops and a whole ton of drops and it did not create a nice layer on the surface for the paint to sit on. I think maybe it's all in the technique, I suck at laying the paint down and I find using an eyedropper completely impossible - it just makes bubbles.

So the conclusion? I guess I'll just have to keep trying, no matter how much it pains me to have the same results over, and over, and over again. Eventually I'll get it right, and that's what matters.

First Attempt!

The structure of the course is akin to this method really: try Paint A with Water Solutions 1 thru 10, then repeat with Paint B, etc. Then I'd have to try my preferred methods with different glass surfaces, and once I really knew what I was doing I would, theoretically, have a way to float enamels on a water/liquid solution and roll my glass over that. The end product being successful seems a little unimaginable right now, but I'll get there.

Second successful attempt!

As a double conclusion, I also think it's really important to be willing to switch up how you work on things. Clearly my approach to texture didn't mesh well with this approach to experimenting, so I would have just suffered if I had kept with it.

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