Encaustics

Yesterday I had an all day encaustics workshop with Susan Sweetwater at the Collective Visions Gallery. She is not only a talented artist but wonderful teacher as well. The first couple hours were spent on an overview, history and safety procedures then we cut loose and played all afternoon.

I feel like I'm newly in love - the process intrigued me and the results surprised and delighted me. I imagined I might feel like a fish out of water in a process where I couldn't use acrylic paint in my work but I didn't even miss them.

Here are the two play pieces I did in the afternoon - both are on plywood. The first is a combination of a watercolor/collage base, seeds, and encaustic; and the smaller one is collaged papers and horse hair fibers that were given to me by one of my dearest friends who lives in Chile. When I get my encaustic studio set up, I'll be do more work on each of them but I thought they were fun beginnings.