Arting with Friends

A year ago, my friend Ellen (above) and I took an encaustic class from Ellen Koment

in the Paseo Arts District here in Oklahoma City.  It was a long hot two days.

We learned a lot. 

And then, because we didn't use it right away, we forgot a LOT. 

So yesterday Ellen came over and we practiced, practiced, practiced.

And if you know either Ellen or me, you know we talked and talked and talked.

But that really helped us be loose in our experimentation.

(More on the experiments at the bottom of the post.)

Here's the only piece I made from scratch and finished.

Well, I'm not quite sure if it's done.  I think so but . . .

Makes me think of grapes for some reason

(maybe cuz I am ALWAYS hungry?  LOL)

The next piece is one I started in class and didn't like.

So when I first whipped up my batch of encaustics, I covered it in white.

And I still didn't like it!

So I scraped and dug and put green wax in the cuts, scraped some more, etc, etc, etc.

Still didn't like it!

So yesterday I pulled it out and covered it in black.

Then I scraped in a tree which I filled with gold.

A lot more scraping and torching and this came out.

I like it.  But it's nothing like what I usually do.

Which can be a very good thing some times.

Ellen and I had so much fun! 

By the end of the day, I think she was as in love with scraping as me. 

I'm telling you, it is soooooooooooo relaxing ~ even contemplative. 

And I'm pretty sure she'll be buying a kitchen torch soon. 

They are so much less intimidating than those big old tank things. 

And easier to control. 

My friend Roz loaned me her torch but I'm going to wait to use it til I do something BIG! 

You see, I am deathly afraid of fire and I burn myself all the time in the kitchen. 

Yeah, I'm a little confused as to why wax is my favorite medium. 

Talk about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone!

In my last post I mentioned I was working on 3 art group projects.

This year we're doing a round robin of boxes.  Very cool. 

When they're all done, I'll share pictures.

In addition, every month the hostess gives us a "challenge".  

I've got to admit, I am pretty lax about doing them.

But in May, Lynda gave each of us an unfinished curved wood cabinet door.

LOVED IT!

and I came up with this ~ After the Fire

Working on the curved surface was tricky. 

But again, something new can yield wonderful results.

Also in the last post I showed some works in process.

Here is one of them with a few more steps of wax collage & color.

Looking pretty different, huh? 

Well, I think it's about to change.

You see, while we were experimenting and talking yesterday, guess what happened?

I got distracted (surprise!  not) and ignored a piece

on the heat for a little longer than I should have.

And I loved the glass smooth finish it gave the wax

so I'm going to do it with this piece on purpose.

I have no idea how it will work becuz you just never

know what the wax will do when it gets hot. 

Okay, you know it will melt, but will it run, pool, slide completely off?

I'll let you know what comes next with this.

I love arting with friends.  New ideas just seem to form in the air.

And while most of the women in my art group do work entirely different than me,

I always come away so inspired.

I am so glad I revamped my studio so there's room for two or three to play.

There's even room for small class of four.

If you're in OKC, let me know. 

Maybe there's some arting in our future.

Repose

Some of you might remember that in a post titled Risqué or Okay? I stressed about posting art online that contained nudity - not a problem with nudity in art but with putting it online.  And how I got over it when I posted the piece Fire a few months ago. 

Also in that first post I had some close-up shots of a piece that I was calling Oklhoma Hills at the time.  I was never quite satisfied with that piece so it moved out of sight for awhile.  When I pulled it out again, I realized the hills/sky were just too juvenile and the body was underemphasized so I scraped and collaged and colored and beeswaxed, and here we are.

She is not nearly as subtle as Fire, is she?  I'd love to know your thoughts.

Repose is available on my website.

knowing when your art is done

Rhythm (finished)

Awhile ago I posted some pictures of pieces I'd been working on asking how do you know when your work is done?  At the time I was sure that the piece below wasn't finished but I had no idea what was needed. I finished it last week by making round impressions and coloring them with brown. It made such a huge difference.

before - not quite there

In that same post, I was sure that the other piece was finished. But I pulled it out last week and attacked it with the scraper and torch and ended up with this.

SST (finished)

These changes are much more subtle ~ so subtle, I have a hard time noticing them myself. Yet the refinements are just what was needed.

before - not quite there (tho I thought it was)


These pieces were relatively new so they might not really qualify as "re-dos" or "do-overs".

But I have some older pieces that I just don't like. Some because my style has just evolved. Some because the composition was always off.

A few of these are hanging on the walls but most have been added back to the substrate pile to become the base of some future piece. Some even have gone in the trash.

It's the ones on the walls that I just am not sure about. Should I rework them, adding more layers but allowing the original to show through? Or should they be relegated to the substrate pile or trash?  Or should I keep them to remind me where I came from artistically (I do keep the photos)?

What do you do with the art you've made but no longer like?

SST is available for purchase on my website.

Storming (a new encaustic piece)

encaustic, charcoal and hand-made paper (just barely peeking thru)

I started this piece in June at the encaustic workshop I took and just felt it needed a little more.  I did some scraping to even out a few lines then added more charcoal around the edges.  Then I hit it with my crème brûlée torch (again, buying tools and not using them as intended) to smooth out the marks from scraping and blend in the charcoal.

Now that I look at it, the differences are minute.  But important.  At least to me.  ;-p


same piece before I finished it today - can you see any difference?

 

Which Way?

Which Way?

encaustic collage on wood

A few posts back I asked how you know when a piece is done?  There are certain pieces that I know are done and others that I know need further development.  Then there are the others ~ those pieces that don't tell me to stop or to keep going.

Today I decided to attack one of the pieces I knew was not quite right (I'm very happy with it now but I can't show you yet because I need my husband to cut the end off) and ended up reworking the one shown here.

Here's the thing: I thought this one was finished when I showed it to you earlier.  But today I realized the wax was too thick and bland so I ironed off some wax and ironed on some color.  What do you think?  Was I right to listen today?

There are a couple more pieces that are speaking to me so hopefully I'll have more pictures soon.

In other news . . .
> as I mentioned in my last post, I started another blog this week.  I also set up a Tumblr blog (not impressed with the format so don't know if I'll keep that up).  And I'm contemplating Google+.  I'm starting to think I should stop - how much is too much?  I'm afraid that social media could take over ALL my time.
> I watched entirely too much Hoarders Monday while defrosting the freezer in the garage.  Now everywhere I look I see a mess!  So my daughter came over and helped me gut the guest room.  It looks so good with the art on the walls.
> Speaking of art - where do you keep yours?  I am getting quite a few pieces here so I decided I needed to hang more so I'm working up piles of what to hang in which rooms.  My house is looking more like a gallery every day.  And while I've sold a few pieces off the walls in my house, I don't really have tons of traffic traipsing thru. 

I guess that means I need to start looking around for gallery representation.  A few friends on facebook have given me some direction in that area so I have no excuse. 

Afterall, I can always make more art to fill the unoccupied spaces on my walls ~ if I don't spend all my time online, that is.