Marbling, day 1

The first day of a three-Saturday course at City Lit focused on suminagashi - "ink floating on water". Some historical examples on which poems have been written -

 ... and some bits that the tutor brought -

We were each given a book with a beautiful, delightful, inspirational, unique cover for our notes -

 My first attempts - the lines of ink aren't supposed to break up like that -

My handful of small samples when dry -

For larger and more delicate papers, a dowel is used to lift the paper out of the bath -

 Making ink -

 I wasn't getting the balance of wetting agent and ink right, so my results were, um, suboptimal ... but as the ink sank to the bottom of the tray, there were some nice ephemeral effects -

Skimming the remnants of ink from the surface in between prints didn't work terribly well, but fresh water and a bit of perseverance finally got a bit of a pattern -

I'll be trying this at home.