At Art Academy we have in our repertoire an exercise that returns to us every few months and which surprises me each time by how deeply it works on the children. I call it “marble painting”. The technique is simple and the pedagogy behind it is fascinating.
The Child takes a tray, places a sheet of paper on it, drips onto the sheet a few drops of paint — preferably in different colours. Then drops a glass marble onto the sheet and begins to tilt the tray gently. The marble rolls on its own. Paint sticks to the marble and trails behind it across the paper, creating winding tracks. Some colours mix. Others run separately. Every tilt creates a new line. Every move of the Child changes the composition.
After a few minutes the Child lifts the tray, takes out the sheet and looks. On the paper is an image no one planned. There is no composition. There is no main motif. There is abstraction — unpredictable, wild, full of freedom. And it is beautiful. Every image is beautiful.
In this article I want to talk about why marble painting is so important to me pedagogically. Why we keep returning to this technique. And what specifically is built in the Child during fifteen minutes of creating art they do not control.
What “process art” is
The term “process art” comes from the 1960s — from New York, from the works of American artists who began to question a basic assumption of art. It used to be assumed — and is often still assumed — that the artist has an idea, plans, executes. The final product is what counts. The process is only the road to that product.
Process art turned this assumption around. It said: the product does not matter — the process is the art. What counts is what is happening during the making, not what is left at the end. Artists of this stream — Robert Morris, Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis and others — experimented with techniques in which the result was unpredictable. They poured paint from a height. They let materials settle by themselves on the floor. They allowed gravity, time and chance the role of co-author.
In children’s pedagogy this stream entered much later — and slowly. Because to this day most art classes in preschools and schools are focused on the product. “Paint a flower.” “Make a kitten from plasticine.” “Cut out a Christmas tree.” The goal is clear from the start. The Child is to reproduce something the adult thought up.
At Art Academy we go a different way. Every few months — especially in October, when the days grow darker and the children need colour — we return to process art. And marble painting is my favourite exercise of this kind.
Why let go of control
Here I want to be honest with you, because this is for me a personal subject. I, as a teacher and as an adult, also struggled with this exercise at first. Every reflex of mine — pedagogical, organisational, aesthetic — wants to control. Wants the composition to be pretty. Wants the colours to combine well. Wants there to be no mess on the floor. Each of these desires is understandable — but each is here an enemy.
Because marble painting works only when the Child feels there is no “right way”. There is no need to be “pretty”. There is no need to be “successful”. There is only need to be — experimental. If the Child senses that I am judging whether the composition has succeeded — they immediately revert to the mode of “fulfilling someone else’s expectations”. And that mode kills experimentalism.
That is why the first thing I do at such a session is to repeat clearly to the children — in both languages — that there is no “right” result. Every image that appears is good. Every image you yourselves do not like is also good. Every will be hung in our gallery — and every will have its place.
After a few such sessions the children internalise this. They no longer ask “may I?”. They no longer check whether they “are doing it right”. They are already in the mode of experiment. And then real work begins.
What specifically happens
Let me describe a particular session, so you can see what it looks like from inside.
We begin with preparation. Each Child gets a tray — a simple plastic one, with edges of about three or four centimetres. I place on each tray a sheet of white paper. I also have small bowls of paint in vivid colours — red, blue, yellow, violet, green. And small glass marbles — the kind children once played with in the yard.
The children sit down. Each picks three or four colours. Drips a drop of each in different places on the sheet. Some children do it carefully — a drop in each corner, evenly distributed. Others share — five drops of red, one of blue, dense in the middle. Still others throw entire puddles onto the sheet so one has to carry the tray to the table carefully.
Then the marble is dropped in. “One marble or two?” — I ask. Some children pick one. Others two. Others three. Each their own. And it begins.
The tray is tilted. The marble rolls slowly — first through the red drop, then through the blue. The line it leaves has a red-blue colour. Next tilt — the marble returns, passes the violet, makes a loop, leaves on the paper a new track. Some children tilt gently, in micro-movements. Others shake the tray dynamically, until the marbles fly with a clatter. Each Child has their style.
After five minutes the paper already has traces — winding, tangled, colourful. Some images look like abstract networks. Others like storms of colour. Others like delicate misty ropes.
The children pause and look. Some are delighted — “Look! It looks like fire!”. Others are not entirely satisfied — “Hmm, can I do another?”. They can. Each Child can make as many images as they want. One Child once made six images during one session. Each different.
After an hour all the images are drying on the table. Each is unique. None looks like another. And each one — really each one — is beautiful.
What is built in the Child
Here I want to talk about five things I observe in the children when they regularly work with marble painting. Each is important to me.
The first thing — comfort with unpredictability. A Child who for fifteen minutes makes art they do not control practises something the adult world takes from them ever earlier. Comfort with not everything being predictable. Comfort with the process having its own life. Comfort with being only a part of the system, not its conductor.
This is a fundamental psychological exercise. Because the adult world — school, career, daily life — reinforces in us the conviction that if we prepare well, if we put enough effort in, if we plan every step — the result will be as we wished. Life does not confirm this. Life is full of accident, of surprise, of things beyond our control. The adult who cannot bear this suffers. The adult who accepts it is calmer, more creative, with less anxiety inside.
Marble painting is an exercise of this comfort. A small one. Five-, ten-, fifteen-minute. But repeated over years — it builds in the Child something lasting.
The second thing — trust in the process. The Child sees that although they do not control what will happen, in the end something beautiful appears. Every time. This is a small, slight observation — but repeated twenty times a year it stays in the Child as a deep conviction. The world creates something on its own. It is enough not to interfere.
In adult psychology there is a term that captures this — “trust in the process”. People who have this trust are happier. They pass through crises more easily. They start new things more easily without certainty of result. This is a quality you cannot learn in middle age — either you have it from childhood, or you have to build it with difficulty in therapy.
The third thing — joy of colour. Children who do marble painting are often genuinely delighted when they see how yellow and red paint mix into orange in one of the marble’s tracks. “Look, orange!” — they shout. Yes, the colours mix — and these mixtures are, for the Child, a discovery. No one told them “I’ll show you that yellow plus red equals orange”. They discovered it themselves. The very fact of the experiment triggered scientific observation in them.
The fourth thing — English as the language of experiment. Every such session is, for me, an occasion to teach English. But not as a lesson — as a natural tool for talking about what is happening. “Tilt the tray. Slowly. Now faster. Look, the marble is going to the corner. Add another colour. Which colour do you want?” The children hear these sentences, understand from context, sometimes answer. Every session is a micro-immersion. After a year — the effect is real.
The fifth thing — humility. A Child who has created something beautiful feels pride. But knows they did not do it entirely on their own. The marble helped too. Gravity helped too. The paint had its say. The Child feels they are part of a larger system, that they are not the only author of their work. For me this is pedagogically very important. Because adults with strong egos who believe everything in their lives depends only on them are often unhappy. A real picture of the world is one in which we are partners with the system — not its sole agents.
What a Parent can do at home
The first practice — your own marble painting at home. You can do this cheaply. An old plastic tray, a few tempera paints, a sheet of paper and a marble — even from a children’s game, even a bead, even a small ball — are enough. Let the Child simply experiment. Every composition is good.
The second practice — other forms of process art. There are many simple techniques going in the same direction. Painting with string dipped in paint. Pouring paint from a height. Printing with stamps from natural materials. Each of these techniques builds the same — comfort with experiment, trust in the process.
The third practice — not hanging only “successful” works. If the Child makes five marble-painting compositions, please do not pick “the prettiest” to hang. Please hang them all. Or let the Child choose for themselves. If you choose — you signal that there are better and worse works. And in process art that distinction does not exist.
The fourth practice — process, not result. When the Child comes home with such a work, please do not ask “and what is this supposed to be?”. Please ask “and how was it for you to make it?”. This question directs the Child’s attention to the process — which here is the content, not the product.
The fifth practice — your own adult process art. Please sometimes try yourselves. Take a tray, paint, a marble. Make an image yourselves. Show the Child that adults do this too. That adults too do not control everything. That adults too can play without a plan. This model, in which the adult is also in experimental mode, is for the Child a revelation.
What this is all for
Because the children who have been through Art Academy walk into adulthood with something most adults have to laboriously rebuild in therapy. They walk in with comfort towards a process they do not control. With trust that when they let go, the world will create something on its own. With delight at colour that mixed itself. With the sense that the marble, gravity, paint and I — are one system in which we all co-create.
We know we live in a world that makes us anxious. A world that constantly tells us to control — our finances, our career, our image, our body, our relationships. To have a plan. To try. To be efficient.
And yet the greatest things in life — first loves, the best ideas, the most satisfying works, the most sincere relationships — come when we let go of control. When we let the process unfold. When we become partners, not dictators.
This competence cannot be taught by lecture. It can only be practised. And marble painting is one of the most beautiful exercises I know. Because the Child, three times a year, for fifteen minutes, is in a state in which the adult is able to be ever more rarely.
I hope our Krasnoludki, when they are adults, will not forget the marble in the paint. And that on a hard adult day, when everything begins to go not as they wished — they will remember. “Yes. I remember. Sometimes you have to let go of the tray. The marble will help.”