Marbling

This week the seventh graders learned about marbling. We were given a sheet of paper with a famous landmark or building on it. We were asked to sketch this drawing to the best of our abilities and then outline it in a black sharpie marker. Once we outlined it and cut out our sketches, we were able to begin the marbling process. The process began by coating the bottom on a tin pan with shaving cream and then adding splashes of color with a paint brush on top of the shaving cream. The trick was that we could only using three adjacent colors on the color wheel for paint. I chose blue, green, and yellow and then used a comb to brush the color spots together into a cool design. Once we created the design we wanted, we were asked to firmly press the drawing into the shaving cream. After we scrapped off the excess shaving cream and were left with a neat marbling design. The project ended with framing it and placing the name below the project.

An extension to this project could be to create famous landmarks and buildings just in South Dakota using the marbling technique. I also would let the students draw and find their own landmark or building to get more creativity. It could be an excellent activity to tie in with social studies and geography.