Encaustic Day 2013

Last Thursday five art friends met at my garage to create encaustics together. Encaustic painting is an ancient medium in which pigment is mixed with bees wax and painted on wood or other porous surface. Here you see the bees wax and damar resin melting to create the encaustic medium.  This is used in between each layer of color and it is also used as a base for the paint. Encaustic paint is made by mixing some of the medium and oil paint. We keep the color in small tins on an electric griddle. 

One of the fun things about encaustic making is that you get to use an acetylene torch to melt the surface after each new layer.  Sometimes, if a piece isn't coming together, you can coat it with shellac and set it on fire. Beautiful unplanned patterns and colors can emerge. In this picture, I let my piece burn a little too long and now it's mostly charred. 

Ruth Ann blogged the blogger : )

Bike Ride-- Slate Run-- PA Grand Canyon

 

On Tuesday, my daughter and I rode our bikes 54 miles along the enchanting Pine Creek in Slate Run, PA.  We enjoyed the gorgeous scenery along the creek as we rode on the rail trail. Our accommodations at the Hotel Manor were much appreciated after our full day of riding. 

New in the Studio (Sarah's old room)

 

This is a painting I've been working on of a canoe on Lake Jean, Rickett's Glenn.  "Miracle Morning", oil, 24 x 18.  There is going to be more of a shadow on the left side and I have to try to show the lily pads on the lake.

The one on the left is an experimental mixed media.

I took paper covered in encaustic and burned 
the pieces with an acetylene torch. I'm going
to add sewn stitches in gold thread and try

to play up the 

 embossed texture of the background.            

The one on the right is an oil of the Grand Central Terminal in NYC.  "Children of the Light".

Garden Joy

 The garden is a peaceful and calming place.  Masses of yellow and orange lilies and  purple echinacea are about to be joined by floods of black-eyed Susans.  Somehow the aged brick walk still harbors soft green moss even with the staggering July heat.  Though I've yet to spot a monarch, I have seen many Viceroy and tiger swallowtail butterflies.  The milkweed has a sweet smell even to this human nose.  I can only imagine how the aroma must entice lepidoptera.  

A garden is a blessing from the Creator as pleasing to me as music.