The best part was when we went out for lunch.

April called me on Friday and gave me the bad news. The bees aren't producing. Gwartzman's has been out of beeswax for a couple weeks. Is this happening everywhere? BEEES! come back! So I bought a big block of microcrystalline and that's what we used. And it was fine. Who needs nature anyway - apparently, not me.

Sunday we had: Zev, Irina, Louie, and Maribeth. Zev did some amazingly gross and drippy work with mouths cut out and wax building up everywhere- I was into it, Zev, even if you refused to do the pretty little exercises I was trying to teach you. Who am I to hold you back? Maribeth brought some really cool vintage photos of her mom taken in a photo booth in the 30s (nice poses, mom), Irina's work was like crazy dolls in an enchanted childhood nightmare forest, and Louie did a beautiful photo transfer over pastels.

Speaking of photo transfers, I'll soon put up the work the kids at Art Heart have been doing. Those guys are genius with the wax, and they're all of 8 years old. The work will be up during the Contact Photography Festival, so they should all be famous soon.

workshops are getting closer!

The first one is full, but I still have a couple more spots available for April 18 and April 25.

gifts for rebecca

This photo's kind of dark but you get a better sense of the texture.

My gift for Jeff's new niece Rebecca. I dipped the charcoal drawings on wax then drew on them with oil pastels and gave them a layer of oil glazing. run free, rebecca!

announcing: Encaustic Workshops in April

I'll be hosting three encaustic workshops at my studio in April. Each one will revolve around a different aspect of encaustic painting, and any one will serve as an excellent introduction to the technique.

Billie finished, mostly

The colours got a lot warmer

Encaustic for everyone

Last Tuesday we all got together to play with hot wax. I kept talking in my teaching voice. You guys did a great job!

Togetherness makes art more fun. And the helmet protects from falling art supplies.

April's collage.

Kira's.

I never should have put the token in there. When I took it to work at Art Heart, all the kids kept trying to pick it off when I wasn't looking.

April

April and I had a really good conversation about monogamy and communal living and baby making while I painted this warrior-like portrait of her.

April, I couldn't help it. It's just that I think you're really hardcore.

With this one I primed the wood panel with a layer of wax, Then did an underpaintng in very thin green and white oil paint. When that dried I added one smooth, clear layer of wax. Then i did the colours in transparent encaustic.

In all of the paintings I'm using microcystalline with a little damar added for hardness.

Billie

Progress pictures of the latest encaustic painting. Looking at mark Karasick's work influenced how this one turned out, smoother and dreamier than my drippy work from before. . I'm trying to wrest control of the wax so that I can make more decisions about where it's smooth and where the drips and valleys build up. Next I need to bring back the agressiveness of the earlier paintings, so things don't get too soft.

The underpainting was in blue and white encaustic. no oil glazing on this one. This is the only part that billie posed for, so the painting really got away from her likeness in the later stages.

I painted on a layer of clear wax between each step and scraped it down to a smooth surface.



Then I started adding in the colour. There was a disastrous experiment where I tried to make a kind of encaustic glaze, about three parts linseed oil to one part wax. it looked great, but NEVER dried. So instead I worked with very transluscent wax.


The painting should be finished later today, I'll post the final shots.

if you're still locked in the basement, don't hesitate to call 911. We've forgotten about you.

A lot of folks ended up locked in the basement and/or the alleyway on their way out of the party Friday night. We never said a party at the studio would be without it's risks. But didn't the danger make it more memorable?

Here's the gorgeous mural you all left us with. It'll live forever...in our hearts. We painted over it on Tuesday.

pencil crayon portraits

I've been working on my drawing skills (see earlier post about James Jean) and with the help of some patient models I've finished a few portraits this month.

Me looking pissed. Prairie-ish.

Meghan showed up ready to pose in her underwear. Yay for art students! Thanks, Meghan, you were awesome.


Billie listening to Obama's inaugaration. When the red man can get ahead, man. That ruled.

Not sure what to do with these. I promised my models a drawing in exchange for sitting for a painting as well, so I guess the drawing of Billie goes to her, since her painting's almost finished.

encaustic on paper

I thought I'd try sketching with encaustic on paper. It seems to work okay as long as the microcrystalline is really soft- very little damar. This is my sister asleep in the studio.

Quit your job, I did!

now i can paint and teach all the time.

I'll be posting my encaustic painting process. I've found a lot of helpful wax info written online, so hopefully I can add to that illustrious cannon.

James Jean put his sketchbooks online and I took that as a challenge. Goal: Draw everyday until I can draw as well as he can. www.jamesjean.com