Another Reason I Love My Real Job...

A couple of months ago I got an email from one of our volunteers (my favorite in fact) telling me about this paper marbling class coming up this August in Columbus. She had taken the class before, therefore, was on the mailing list. The instructor, Ann Woods, is a pretty well known paper and calligraphy artist, especially known in the Columbus area with her work with kids and paper marbling...
I had seen Ann demonstrate Turkish paper marbling about a year earlier at a conference I was at...and I was blown away! It's such an interesting process. The color/pigments sit on top of a pan of water, then you drag a comb or other tools through the pigments to make a design. Then you place a piece of paper on top of the water and VOILA...you have a beautiful piece of marbled paper! Now, of course, it's way more complicated and difficult than that...but still so cool!

So, once I saw the listing for the workshop I immediately begged Antoine to take the class with me! I thought it would be a fun little activity for us! He, of course, agreed. Then I told my boss that I was planning on attending and she suggested that I try to get the university to pay for it, as training (since we have all or most of the supplies to do paper marbling in our department, we just don't have the knowledge or instruction to do it!) And what do you know, my request was approved, so not only is the university paying for me to go to this class (from 9-4:30pm tomorrow), but they are also paying for my gas and mileage to get there...SWEET! And on top of that...I get a day off next week to make up for me "working" tomorrow! It just can't get any better!

Basically, Ann supplies all the paper, pigments, and tools, but she said we could bring any additional paper, broad, or cloth if we wanted to experiment! So Wednesday Antoine and I went to the fabric store to get various types of cloth to try out and then yesterday I raided our department's straps of paper and board to find things to experiment with! I'm so excited! It should be a really fun class! And I'll try to take some pictures and maybe even a video or two during the class! I'll report back to you guys on Monday or Tuesday! Hopefully I can produce something half as pretty as these...

Have a happy, safe weekend...and try not to melt!