Marble

Marble
Watercolour on Paper
23.0cm x 14cm (9" x 5.5")

Richard Bertinet's bread recipes create a dough that is wet, sticky, and strong. When I make bread (an infrequent event), I knead the dough on this heavy marble block. If I am not careful, it ends up swinging around the kitchen on the end of a doughy bungee cord. 

The picture is inspired by the Marble topic in the Earth Textures chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

Claudia's marble examples are more veined than this, she uses rubbing alcohol to create the distinctive marbling patterns in the watercolour washes. We don't have any rubbing alcohol lying around the house and I was unsure whether gin, beer or wine would serve as the best alternative. I used a natural sponge instead (see Volcanic Rock). This is my favourite painting tool of the moment.