This isn't an art posting today but rather a posting from the heart! ...

When I was a kid, I volunteered for Daffodil Days to sell flowers and raise hope, awareness, & funds in honor of my grandmother's passing from cancer.  The first year I participated, my grandmother was still alive and it was a wonderful feeling to hand her a bouquet of daffodils and tell her that what I had done for her.  

I hope that you will join me in making any contribution that you can to bring light, hope, & love into a cancer patient's life.   I recommend the "Gifts of Hope" package which starts at $25 and provides flowers anonymously to cancer patients.  You will not receive anything physical from this donation but you will enrich the lives of a patient.

Thank you for reading and hope you're able to contribute in some way!  Click here to go to my American Cancer Association fundraiser page.
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Yesterday I received a phone call from the Board President of my gallery association-- they are inviting me to run for a Board position!  This is so exciting-- hooray!  I also asked to be put on the slate for Secretary cause I just love typing so much!  I take the minutes of our meetings at work and rather enjoy it so I thought I could lend that skill to the team.  

Talking Pictures #1
Oil on Canvas
6 x 6"
June 2008

Still working on my oil paint making tutorial.  I'm having fun typing this up and am looking forward to releasing it!  Head is a bit spinny today, much like this paint, so I don't have much to report on-- Off to bed to feel better for tomorrow.

I just listed an older painting in my Etsy shop.  It had been on short term loan to a law office and now it's back home, looking for its next life!  Show it some love!

Ghosts of the Past #5
Encaustic, Photographs, & Graphite on Cradled Birch
12" x 12" (30.48 cm x 30.48 cm)
January 2009

Not currently for sale, please inquire if interested.  (Photo credit: Gen. George Thomas and a group of officers at a council of war near Ringgold, Ga., May 5, 1864. 77-HMS-344-2P.)
(click inage to zoom, click title for details)

Finished this painting tonight!  I think this battle is over.  
So, as you can see in my previous post, I had glued down two images.  One was of these officers and the other was an image of clouds.  I wanted to cast a heavy storm above their heads and give these men an outward glow.  The General is given an iconic treatment.  

I don't normally like to talk too much about the symbolism and ideas behind my paintings, I like to just put them out there and see what people get from them.  I'm happy to discuss when prompted, though!

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This painting has decided to declair war against me!  I can see the General plotting it out now.  He thinks he's so smart and he had me in a corner for a long time.  But I finally pushed forward and I think I may have bested him.  Only time will tell.  I hope to meet him on the battlefield tomorrow.  There's much to do but I will stare him and his cronies square in the eye and charge towards him, Braveheart style!

Trees #1
5" x 5" image size, 7" x 7" paper size
Giclee Print

Farm Utopia
9" x 9"
Watercolor, india ink pen, drawing ink, and thread on handmade rag watercolor paper
by Lauren Simone

I love when an idea works out better than expected!  I had this image which I pasted down yesterday (see last night's post) and had an idea of what I wanted to do with the officer's bodies but not sure about exactly how to incorporate the background.  The trees are what initially drew me to the image and I knew that I wanted to keep them in.  I wound up painting around them and then chasing after the lines with scraping/carving and drawing them in with charcoal.  

This painting, along with 1 or 2 more, will be submitted to a gallery show called "White, Black, & Shades of Gray."  I'm glad that I decided to do this and challenge myself by taking the "color" out.  Of course, I still mixed actual colors into the painting to give it depth.  Can't wait to get paint on the next board!  Hope this makes it into the show.  Wish me luck!

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Ghosts of the Past #4
Encaustic, Photograph, & Charcoal on Cradled Birch
12" x 12" (30.48 cm x 30.48 cm)
January 2009

Not currently for sale, please inquire if interested.
(click inage to zoom)
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Today I started working on 2 new paintings.  In a previous post I stated that I usually have a few pieces going on at the same time and that's no lie!  Currently. I have 3 encaustic paintings and 1 oil painting in progress.  The oil hasn't been touched in a while but it's still there staring at me jealously.  The encaustics include 1 that is waiting for the final step; still unsure how to proceed and finish my thoughts on him.  

The other two are these 12 x 12 pieces.  I was printing out these images for a much larger painting and had the weirdest error with the ink.  The black decided not to work so these B&W photos wound up being printed with color ink only.  The result was sort of solarized and I thought that I could explore this further and see what I could make of it.  After all, I hate wasting paper!  I found the it opened me up to the way that I 'm using the photographs.  I'm picking and choosing the pieces that I want much more carefully and I'm excited to get some paint on these soon!

As I work, I'm always thinking about other artists and their work that sticks in my head.  When I get stuck and can't think I usually will turn to an art book.  I have a nice collection of monographs and my favorite one is of Nathan Oliveira.  He's one of my favorite painters and someone that I look to often.  When I was doing figurative work, it was his movements and compositions that really turned me on.  As I studied his paintings and got to see some in person, I began to look at the broader picture.  I was really attracted to the paint itself and the layering of colors.  The simplicity and intricacy of his color palette really astounds me and heavily influences my work.

Ok, I have a problem. I *love* tea. That may not sound like a problem but I *REALLY* love tea and when I made this group of paintings I actually sat down and figured out how much tea I drink in a week, on average. I drink about 17 cups of hot & iced tea a week. I'm ok with that, especially if there are cookies involved.

These are the 3 paintings that I was working on Sunday.  They have actual tea leaves embedded in it-- vanilla spice chai to be exact (my favorite!). Each have the a tally of 17 hatched into it to reveal the underpainting color. The overall color is how I like to drink my tea-- milky! This was really a great mix since the painting smells like chai tea with honey-- perfect!  I really do love the smell of encaustic so adding tea to it is like a dream come true.

Today was a cutting day!  I needed to make some supports for the back of the panels that I painted yesterday so I found some wood scraps from our recent flooring project in the studio (read about it here).  Took them to the mitre saw and had some fun!  Well, to be honest-- that darned thing scares me!  I used to love going into the woodshop and using power tools but these days I don't feel coordinated enough to feel safe with myself.  And yesterday my friends were all talking about injuries that they recently sustained and I don't want a story to add!  

I had a very productive day today! I made three new paintings!  These have tea leaves embedded into them and hatch marks actually hatched in-- more on that soon!  I painted these on thin plywood so I just need to build a support for the back and add hardware.  I know I should do that first but when the idea moves me, I just have to get to painting!  

Do you submit your work to art shows?  I've been thinking about getting back into it.  I used to submit my work upon occassion ...if I found a show that I really thought suited me.  Have you had any reasonable success with this?  I've done great for local shows but not for those big national and international calls that you see all over the place.  

I've been working hard on writing a tutorial about painting with wax.  I have the introductory 'course' written already and some other subjects like using images, embedding objects, etc.  What would you want to learn about?  If you're experienced already or just wondering about encaustic painting...what would you want to know?

I made some more encaustic paint samples last night and am loving the enhanced colors.  I wanted to add some more vibrance to them and am so happy with the results! I have some more color lines I'm thinking of making-- how can I find more hours in the day?  I think I've exhausted all the workable hours I can find.  But it feels good to keep busy so on I go!  If I could only figure out how to hand make time.  Hmmmm.

Today I received the most wonderful email from Samatha in Toronto.  She had purchased a watercolor painting of mine some time ago and was holding onto it until she could figure out the right home for it.  As she wrote to me, 

Studio
3.5' x 2.5' x 3'
Resin, clay bricks, tin
by Adam Junior

This morning my friend asked me to make her a custom color of encaustic paint- Robin's Egg Blue!  I love mixing custom colors and couldn't wait to come home and give it a whirl.  I used my white encaustic medium and mixed in some ultramarine blue, titanium white, a custom yellow mix and natural encaustic medium for that slight hint of green.  I'm not sure if there's anything I love more about painting than mixing my own colors!

Today I had the extreme pleasure of visiting a yurt!  We've been dying to get one (or twenty) for our backyard -- yurts in the hayfield!  There is a clear dome window at the top which lets in the most beautiful natural light!  It would really make such a perfect studio setting; fantastic even lighting and plenty of room to spread out all my art supplies!  Oh that would simply be heaven!

Ghosts of the Past 2
Encaustic, embedded Photograph, & Grass on found wood
9.5" x 9"
September 2008

Available in my Etsy Shop or through JamieRibisi.com

Looking closer- a brief exploration of art:

This painting incorporates the technique of embedding objects in the wax. The grass and the photograph are both embedded and it's a pretty simple task!

First, I fused one layer of encaustic onto my substrate and fused it. Then I brushed encaustic medium onto the back of the image and a little bit on the area that it was heading to live and smooshed them together real fast. Using a flat tool, I got all of the air bubbles out and then layered another bit of medium on top of the image. Fuse and repeat the layers of medium until satisfied with the result.

The grass is done in a similar manner but takes a bit of adjusting the blades because they are so small and fragile. Embedding natural objects into wax is really fun because the material will change as it adjusts to the heat and to the wax. They tend to brown and dry out slightly as they sit in the pool of molten wax. Just like nature-- you never know what's going to happen and that's the best part of encaustic painting-- in my world, anyway!

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If you liked my little behind the scenes venture into painting, keep following my blog for the "Looking closer" series and learn what I do, how I do it, and why!

For the encaustic dreamers, I will also be creating a tutorial that will give you detailed in-depth tips, tricks, & techniques with lots of technical info so that you will feel safe and armed with the knowledge to feel comfortable creating your own beeswax art! I'll post it here once it's ready for sale (& some freebie opportunities, too!)

Roots #1
Encaustic, Image Transfer, & Oil Pastel on Cradled Panel
8" x 8" (20.32 cm x 20.32 cm)
January 2009

Welcome to my new blog!