I need containers

I was fortunate to win a give-away on the Cloth, Paper, Scissors blog. It was like Christmas when they arrived ….  encaustic materials including two instructional DVDs, ExtravOrganza (printable silk sheets,) 12 colors of Jacquard’s PearlEx powdered pigments, some encaustic medium and a book, The Encaustic Studio by Daniella Woolf.

The package arrived late afternoon so that evening I sat down and watched the first one instead of the news. Not much good news anyway. 

I’d done a couple encaustics previously at my friend Annie Morgan’s  studio. This is one I did there with a lot of direction from Annie.

The DVD and the rest of the treasures inspired me. The next day I spent the day playing with encaustics and here are the results…

That night I watched the second DVD and now there are even more ideas floating around in my head which brings me to needing containers. This morning I started reading Daniella's book and it struck a chord. She responds to so many things and ideas come at her at such a pace that she is sometimes paralyzed so she has to set parameters, containers she calls them. She was talking about me but I haven’t learned to set those parameters and find myself going in circles way too often.

Am I too old? I taught myself to become a morning person after we won’t say how many years of being a night person. An aside, when I was first forcing myself to get up early my neighbor was over for dessert and we were talking about it. She said she noticed I was up very early one night when she got up about 4 in the morning and I was in my studio already. She didn’t realize it but she was talking about a time when I was still a night person. I’m not in my studio at 4 in the morning anymore but I might be there by 5:30.

So my task… determine some parameters and stick with them for a month. I’m going to give myself some time to think about it. Ideas are already floating around in my head… color and subject keep popping up. One thought is green. I’m a blue person, if it’s blue I’m gonna love it and if there is one color I don’t like, it’s green. Maybe I need to spend a month getting to know green a bit better. Who knows, I may learn to like it.

More Mixed Media Daily

The painting is almost finished.  One of the downsides of my painting process is the wait while layers dry.  However, it’s also a positive because it gives me time to experiment with the mixed media pieces I’ve been playing with.

I’ve been reading an interesting book, Plaster Studio, by Stephanie Lee and Judy Wise.  One of Judy’s projects in the book was a wine angel using joint compound, collage and encaustics.  Since I collect angels and drink wine the project appealed to me; however,  I didn’t happen to have joint compound on hand the day I decided this would be my daily piece.

I used a piece of board, covered it with unbleached muslin that I had tried doing some transfers on but that didn’t work, covered that with some yellow ochre watercolor, decided it was too dark so the next layer was gesso. 

Next I sketched my angel and did the writing.  On my way to finding something else I came across some wine labels so I decided to add them.  Then I used collage for her dress, wings and halo before adding a layer of encaustic.

Once the encaustic was done I used watercolor crayon to add the rest of the color.  She was fun to do and now hangs over the wine rack in our kitchen.

Yesterday’s piece was another sunset.  This time a fabric collage using watered  down acrylic on fusible.  At the moment it’s collage on fabric but I think it’s going to become a small art quilt so this may serve as the basis for another piece sometime this week.  Meanwhile, I’m off to do the last pour on my painting.

New Miniatures

 

I have no idea why the Keene Farm (lower right) came out this odd shape in the photo, it is actually the same size and configuration as the two top pieces.  I'm better at painting than at photography.  The three that are similar are 2" and the frames are collaged using New York Times Magazine pages that I have sprayed with Citra-Solv and then given them an Encaustic coating for protection.  The odd one is 1 1/2" and the frame has been collaged with an old navigation chart and coated as the others were.  This one doesn't have a glass or plexi glaze, instead I coated it with an acrylic glaze for protection.

 

Last weekend we celebrated our anniversary by taking a trip to our favorite big city.... Chicago.  We went to see the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago which is beautiful and full of wonderful works.  While we were there we also visited the Cultural Center and I was awestruck by the wonderful mosaic work. 

All of it was wonderful but the crown... the beautiful dome by Tiffany. 

I'm not only attracted to old and beautiful... things that are worn out also get my attention... here are a few shots of sidewalk.... I think they'll make good starts for abstract pieces.

More postcards

The first one is the painting... it's 10 1/2 x 7 inches.  The second one is the postcard, an image transfer that has been embellished and coated with encaustic finish... resulting in different colors and a different look... it's 6 x 4 inches.  And two more postcards round out this weeks work....  Both of these are transfers from my paintings that have been embellished before adding the encaustic finish. 

The postcards will go to the Muskegon Museum of Art for it's Annual Postcard Salon Fundraiser.  They'll be available for sale there for $30 each.  The painting is available matted with a 3" mat for $95. 

Postcards

Every year the Muskegon Museum of Art has a Postcard Salon. Artists are invited to submit 5 postcards which will be for sale for $30 each. The Museum gets half and the artist gets half. There is no jurying, everyone is invited to submit as long as they meet the size requirement and that they are not photocopies of something... they have to be original pieces. I've done this every year... sold some and not sold some... doesn't matter really, it's a fun event. All of the postcards are displayed, everyone has a chance to see them and then the doors are closed while they prepare for the sale. Museum members get in 5 minutes before the rest of the crowd.... and the rush is on to get these bargains while contributing to the Museum. I finished two of mine this week.... The first one is Mardi Gras... or should it be Venitian Masks (maybe Mardi Gras because I don't think I know how to spell Venitian.) The second one is No. 10. Both of the images are from Wetcanvas.com. Both are mixed media... starting with watercolor and adding other media to them. Number 10 has an encaustic finish because there was some pastel on the piece and I wanted it to stay put.

Miniature Watercolors, Encaustic Frames

This one is my favorite... I'm a hat person and I loved the two white hats they were wearing.  I finished it last week but didn't get it posted.   I also finished the elephant earlier but added the frame this week.  The frames are encaustic and New York Times magazine pages again.

An Encaustic Frame for a Watercolor

This week I've been working on more encaustic frames; however, instead of the navigation maps I'm using New York Times Sunday magazine pages that have been treated with Citra-Solv. I spray the Citra-Solv on the pages and hang the magazine over a line to dry. When it's dry I get some wonderful shapes and colors. So far this is the only magazine I've found it works with. Here's the first piece framed with one of the frames, it's 2 1/2 2 2 1/2". The next photo is one of the pages of the magazine so you can see what happens to it. If you aren't familiar with it, Citra-Solv is a cleaning solution that I get in my local health food store.