While shopping at Zart Art for bookbinding materials, I spotted this marbling kit. I did marbling waaaaay back in year 11. This looked like a cheap, child-friendly version, but I figured that was a good way to dabble without spending a lot or having to clean up oil-based paint.

The first mistake I made was to use a black plastic tub, which meant I couldn’t see the inks very well. The second was to put too much ink in…

… and when they say you can run it under the tap if the ink bleeds… well, it didn’t work that well. But the second piece, as you can see, was much better – little bleeding and more defined edges.

Some of the inks didn’t go so well together. Blue and black weren’t so good, but ‘red’ and black worked fine.

Overall I was a bit disappointed about the colour saturation. Everything came out pastelised, and dried even paler. Then just as the novelty was wearing off, this happened:

I tell you what, it was kinda freaky to lift up the page and see a face staring back at me!