Time for an Intervention!

This is of course the newest picture of my smiling happy granddaughter! This must have been taken right after she talked with her grandma last week. She is just two months old now.


You know you have gone to far when you start naming your marbled pieces.... It is hard to stop when the size is behaving so well. I actually marbled until I was down to wrinkled plastic at the bottom of the tray and tried to get one last pair of socks from that but it wasn't very successful!





So I made up a fresh batch of methyl cellulose and alum this afternoon and shall be starting up again tomorrow as I have about 10 yards of treated fabric to play with again. The weather has been perfect for spending time outside if only to hang things on the line! Of course, it is planting time and we always have an annual bed in the front yard which is my job to plant this year as hubby is helping eldest daughter. So interspersed with marbling, the garden is going in, slowly but surely and my back is feeling it now!




A River Runs Through It

Water Lillies

Field of Poppies

I have overcome some problems I had in the past which I misdiagnosed!! After I had been using the size for awhile, I would get good prints but when they dried, they would be streaky and muddy looking. I had decided this was just what happened with opaque paints (lots of binder) and when the size got very, very shallow (1/4" deep). Well, Elin looked at the pieces which I brought in to class and said she thought I was washing too much!! Bingo! What was happening is that when I had some nice fresh size, I would go get a nice bucket of clean water for rinsing as well!! I just wasn't using a large enough bucket and wasn't changing the water frequently enough. This forced me to rinse more to get the excess paint off. I use a LOT of paint in my marbling. I had noticed that my "ghost" prints (the second or third ones you take from one surface) were always clean but they didn't have any excess paint, so I washed less.

The only one that I was dissatisfied with today was my initial "clean the surface of leftovers" print that I took first thing. Basically the paint was as good as hardened on the surface of the size and the cloth didn't absorb it well but it gave an interesting print and an effect I may play with some more.

No, Bill, I haven't forgotten your apron!