Ebru Paper Marbling Workshop

Dilara Karaagac is leading an Ebru paper marbling workshop at St Albans Museum + Gallery on Saturday 20 March, a session dedicated to the traditional Turkish art of floating colour on water. If you've never come across Ebru before, the name comes from the Persian word for cloud, and the process is just as airy as it sounds. Instead of painting directly onto a surface, you work with a tray of thickened water, carefully dropping pigments onto the surface where they float and spread. From there, you use tools to pull and swirl those colours into patterns before gently laying a sheet of paper on top to lift the design off the water and fix it to the page.

Karaagac will be teaching two distinct styles during the workshop. The first is battal, the foundational marbling technique that produces those classic, organic swirls and stone-like veins. Once you've got a handle on that, the session moves on to floral motifs, where you use a fine tool to draw specific shapes—like tulips or carnations—into the floating paint. It's a slow, deliberate kind of making, and because you're working with liquid, no two sheets ever come out the same.

It's a hands-on session, so you'll be spending the time actually working the water rather than just watching a demonstration. You'll leave with your own marbled papers, and you'll have a decent grasp of how to build a pattern from scratch. The workshop is held at St Albans Museum + Gallery, in the Town Hall on St Peter's Street, AL1 3DH, and tickets are £30.