[slideshow] These are a few of the marbled papers that came out of the marbling demo I did for the South Pasadena Arts Crawl a few weeks ago. I really like some of them (and some I can tell I was distracted when making them!).
It's funny how it can take a few days for me to really appreciate what I've created. I love marbling for its instantaneous results--lay down paint, do your design, lay down paper, pull up paper, viola!--but the downside is that because I can do upwards of 30 papers in a full-day session, the pieces whiz by and become a blur. It's not like I'm a machine cranking out work without a thought, however. After a piece comes off the tank, I do study it--how do the colors look, did the design turn out, what is the bath doing to the paint? But at this point, it's mostly technical appreciation...and then I'm on to the next piece making adjustments or trying something new based on what I just learned.
It's not until after I've torn down the studio, after all the papers have dried, after they have sat under heavy Davey Board for a few days, after they are brought in and laid out on my inside studio table that I really see them in a bigger artistic context. My eyes linger over each piece and I begin to appreciate them for the fine art that they are. I envision how they would be best displayed (which side is up!), if I would use the whole sheet or just parts of it, and how I would frame it (to mat or not to mat?). I look at the pieces over and over again and fall deeper in love with my work each time. Eventually, after five or six days, I force myself to sort them (by size and paper type) and put them away with the rest of my creative inventory in big, flat files designed specifically for large papers.
But then a week will go by and I'll find myself digging through my inventory, pulling pieces out that I am particularly fond of, and the love affair kicks in again. That's usually what inspires me to set up the marbling tank and begin the whole process all over again.
It's a nice cycle to be caught up in.