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Tag Archives: paint

Waxing poetic

15 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by createdforjoy in Make

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art, cardstock, collage, daisies, encaustic, grow, make, paint, paper, resin, trees, watercolor, wax

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Okay, that’s the very last wax pun, I promise. :) I tried encaustics — the art of painting and collage with wax — for the first time a couple of months ago, and I was instantly hooked. I love the depth and texture added to paper and fabric by the waxy, slightly opaque layers of encaustic medium. As a collage enthusiast who owns at least two dozen types of adhesives ranging from hot glue to glaze, tacky tape to epoxy, I am also fascinated by the endless potential for embedding objects in and on beeswax.

March was a fruitful season of learning and growth for my family and I, but it wasn’t one that allowed for much time in the studio. I decided to celebrate my return with a second encaustic piece. As with my first, this one is on a 4″-square piece of watercolor paper mounted on masonite. I made the abstract pastoral background by applying wrinkled plastic wrap to still-wet watercolor washes to add texture and grain. I sketched and cut out a few small paper trees to give the scene a little more depth and detail, then added a bit of yellow patterned cardstock to the center of the sun.

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The final touch was tiny text that reads “keep growing,” snipped from the pages of a 1938 farming magazine. I painted on several coats of encaustic medium, warming the surface with a heat gun between each application to help fuse the layers. After applying the last, I floated a smattering of miniature resin daisies in the hot wax. I love how the liquid wax drifted up and around them, almost enveloping their delicate white petals.

I am already at work on a slightly larger scale encaustic piece, and this time I want to experiment more with achieving patterns in the wax. My studio smells musty and sweet, perfumed by watercolor and heated wax that seems faintly scented of honey. It is how I imagine the inside of a beehive must smell (don’t tell me otherwise — I like the romance), and it makes me feel inspired and busy. More to come!

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Gifts

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by createdforjoy in Make, Think

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art, art journal, branches, canvas, communication, gifts, growth, leaves, make, nature, paint, paper, teen, think, treasure, trees

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Growing up is hard. (I know this because, at age thirty-mumble, I am still in the midst of the process myself.) My precious teenage son has been feeling those growing pains mightily the last few months. He is a head taller than he was a year ago, but his physical growth has easily been outpaced by the changes required of his spirit, heart, and character. There is much more involved in the transition from boy to young man than buying longer jeans and beginning to care about how your hair looks.

We are both new at this: he’s never been fifteen before, and I’ve never parented a fifteen-year-old. Sometimes I have the advantage of others’ wisdom, gained from friends who are decorated veterans of the teen years, and from books on every subject of teen parenting: loving them and being loved by them; exploring their gifts and learning the challenges that are part of those gifts; setting appropriate boundaries and knowing when to bend so we don’t break. But just as often, I am making it up as I go along. I am treading carefully and prayerfully, encouraged by the company and guidance of my sweet husband, but I am absolutely winging it.

Since my own imperfection has long been established, it is no surprise that there are days when I mess up; I over-correct and underestimate, I raise my voice and don’t spend enough time on my knees. But I am trying my best to be present, to be thoughtful, to be unconditionally loving, to make the most of the fact that I am alive and able to do this because I recognize that is no small victory. And it is important to me that in the midst of all this correction and guidance, my firstborn remembers how very gifted and treasured he is. He has a set of grace-given talents and qualities that give him incredible potential, and I wanted to create something concrete that would remind him of those. The pages in this little art journal are the size of playing cards, but they are meant to communicate a big message.

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The envelope in the front contains a personal note to my son, letting him know how special he is to me and how much I appreciate him. It seemed only logical to embrace the growth theme with this art journal, so I used a lot of earth tones and nature imagery. The pages themselves are untreated canvas that I dry-brushed with acrylic paint before layering on rectangles of paper printed with trees, branches, and leaves.

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If there is one thing this journey to adulthood is about, it is embracing and understanding your imperfection. I tried to honor that in my design choices for the journal. I stayed away from perfect corners, hand-cutting the small squares of paper I used as decoration. I also left the edges of the canvas raw so they could fray with handling. (This is not meant as a subtle reference to my nerves, I promise.) I finished the pages by aging them unevenly with tea-colored ink and a little bit of sanding with fine grit sandpaper.

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In the future, I hope this mini-journal reminds my adult son of how those teen years turned out pretty well in the end. For now, I hope it shows him that even on the hardest days, in the midst of all this compromise and growth, it is my great privilege to be his mom.

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Wax on, wax off

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by createdforjoy in Make, Read

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encaustic, glass beads, make, mixed media, paint, read, resin, sugar stars, wax

encaustic3

When I first saw encaustic artwork years ago, I was immediately infatuated. I love the way the layers of wax bring depth and texture, and you can embed almost any multimedia object in it. However, it seemed too complex and cost-prohibitive to even consider trying. There was also the space-planning issue. At the time, my “studio” consisted of a table in the corner of our master bedroom, and it would have required some drastic changes to make room for all the encaustics materials. There were only two items left in the room that could be exchanged for more art workspace; since I was fairly accustomed to sleeping in a bed and also pretty attached to my husband, I opted to put my adventures in wax painting on hold.

Fast forward eight years, and a lot has changed. (not on the husband front — I mean space-wise :) I actually have my own room in the house devoted to creating art, and the price of encaustic art supplies has decreased as the medium’s popularity has grown. When I realized that I could use an electric griddle in place of a more specialized (read: expensive) heated palette to melt the wax/resin mixture, I decided to take the leap.

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If you’ve read more than a post or two on this blog, then I bet you can guess my next step: I went looking for a book to find out more. Patricia Seggebruch is one of the first wax artists I encountered years ago, and her newest book, Encaustic Mixed Media: Innovative Techniques and Surfaces for Working With Wax, was a great starting point. Over the past few years, she experimented with a variety of techniques and media beyond traditional applications, and her enthusiasm about her discoveries is definitely contagious.

I decided to start small, a 4″-square collage with watercolor, paper, wax, and tiny beads. “A thousand sugar stars” felt like the perfect title for a piece of art created on the heels of weeks of late-night holiday baking. I scattered coarse salt over the wet watercolor sky to create crystalline stars, then added a paper landscape in the foreground. Next I painted on a few layers of wax and sprinkled on some royal blue and pale pearl glass seed beads.

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Although I find encaustics a generally peaceful pursuit, I have to admit there is something slightly invigorating about holding a paintbrush full of molten wax in one hand and a heat gun in the other. ;) Fortunately I have asbestos hands from years of cooking and baking. I’ve started experimenting with the addition of fabric pieces to the background collages, and I love the saturated, translucent quality the wax gives to textiles. Stay tuned. :)

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(North Light Books: 2011; ISBN 978-1440308703)

Hello, Chickadee

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by createdforjoy in Think

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chickadee, paint, think, watercolor

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The black-capped chickadee is a charming little bird found all over North America. It gets its name from the most familiar of its calls — there’s no mistaking that distinctive chick-a-dee-dee-dee. I love that they look like feathery little puffballs, and their shape and color is especially striking against winter’s bare brown branches and snow.

Chickadees tolerate humans well all year long, but in the winter they will actually eat from human hands. I find it fascinating that this small, undomesticated bird has learned to trust humans in order to obtain food during the leanest months. That willingness to take nourishment where he can find it, combined with a remarkable ability to use what he takes in efficiently, means the chickadee can endure harsh winter conditions that might otherwise threaten him.

It’s fitting that the last watercolor I did in 2007 was of a chickadee. I didn’t know at the time that it would be almost two years before I held a paintbrush again, and I never could have imagined the winter that was about to follow. I have that painting on display in my living room now — not because it’s the best I’ve ever done, but because it reminds me every day of how important it is to trust, especially during the hardest times; to take nourishment when and where it is offered, even if it means leaving myself vulnerable.

Just the beginning…

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by createdforjoy in Make

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beginning, butterfly, Chinese takeout box, make, paint, transformation, watercolor

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chrysalis

I recently got this piece back from the gallery exhibit where it’s lived for the better part of a year, and it feels like reconnecting with an old friend. I think every piece of art captures a place in time, a version of the artist and her thoughts and feelings. Regardless of whether art is intentionally autobiographical, it is inherently personal. In this case, it’s both.

This artwork was inspired by a challenge from Brevard Art Museum to transform an ordinary white Chinese take-out box into a piece of art. At the time, I was just beginning to understand that serious illness had changed me, but also that those changes could lead to something beautiful. The butterflies are watercolor versions of the blue morpho taking off in flight. The lettering on the back of each butterfly reads What the caterpillar perceives as the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning.

The take-out box is covered in handmade silk paper and silk fibers, and the stem is made of paper-wrapped wire and beads. The inside of the “chrysalis” is layered with ecru raw silk rods and glass seed beads in shades of purple and green. This piece uses a lot of my favorite media — paper, textiles, glass beads, and watercolor — and speaks to a lot of what art means to me.

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