Encausticamp

Last week I drove over to Salem, OR and spent a wonderful three days learning about encaustics. I don't even know how to start explaining all that I experienced and learned. Fortunately others have written about it much more eloquently than I can. Start off by going to Trish Baldwin's blog, Trish organized this whole experience and did a fabulous job. Also check out Roxane's blog and Jess's blog

My first class was with Michelle Belto, who taught us how to use encaustics with handmade paper. Many years ago I use to make paper so I was very excited about this class. We spent the morning making paper,then in the afternoon used paper that Michelle had prepared for us ahead of time and started applying wax and color, also torching it. Here are two of the pieces I did in that class.


The next day was making a book of images using encaustic taught by Bridgette Guerzon Mills. As I learned to transfer my images(all from my photos or drawings) to the encaustic medium my head just started swimming with ideas. I have thousands of photographs and this is the first process that really felt like the right way to use some of them. This is the accordian folded book that I made.



The last day was the class with Trish Baldwin, oh my, oh my!!! We played not only with the wax but with tar, plaster, pan pastels, stencils, torches, heat guns, oils and probably a few things I've forgotten. I loved this class!! The picture below was taken during class of some of what I had worked on that day. Most were just samples so I could try them and then remember them.


This is my favorite piece from the three days. It's a cradled wood panel with plaster which was allowed to dry, then the piece was torched so that the uncovered wood would burn, then I added multiple layers of wax and color.


I came home wanting to change one end of Studio B into an encaustic studio, but it will have to wait at least until after next Wednesday because I'm teaching a dye class and we are going to need all the space.