WORKSHOP LOVE!

A while back I signed up for an encaustic workshop at our local art center but since it was during the school day and I don't currently teach encaustics, I was denied.  Lucky for me the artist came back to town for an "artists in residency" at Norfolk Senior High School and decided to host a night time workshop.

I learned so much... and fell in LOVE with encaustics!  It was so much fun.  You had no control over what was happening.  It was all about playing and experimenting and removing and creating and layering and playing and learning....

Here are a few things I created in the 3 hour workshop.

This was our poured collage... you put down some stuff.  Pour some wax.  Put down more stuff.  Pour more wax. Manipulate as desired (I scrapped away the way on the smaller butterfly and created texture by painting with a brush).  If you leave it flat, the wax dries smooth.  If you wiggle it, like I did, the wax dries bumpy.  

This is a poured collage with colored wax painted on top.  I painted, layered and then "hit it with heat to make the wax dance."  The colors mixed together.  Then I scraped off some wax and then incised into the remaining wax.  To finish it, I painted dots of wax.  

This was my texture painting.  I painted layers of colored wax.  Scraped, painted, scraped and painted.  I put lace down and layered wax on top... then removed the wax to see they textures.  

Oh my this was fun... I played a lot with spackling on my paintings in college and this was like that but better.  The wax had this beautiful transparency that I never would have had before.  It was fun hanging out with other people, creating and learning from them.  I saw whole images made of dots.  I saw hand colored photographs.  I saw photo transfers.  I saw gorgeous poured collages.  It was a great night! Thank you Margaret Berry for sharing this wonderful medium with us!