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New encaustic painting


The Tree Is the Real Thing
Encaustic & Mixed Media on wood
24" x 24"
April 2010

title from the quote: "Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
-Abraham Lincoln

I started this large encaustic painting in June of last year and I finally finished it today! What a great feeling to get this monkey off of my back :) Seriously though, I've had a good time trying out some new techniques and color schemes and trying to make it all meld.

I had known that I wanted to use this image but I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it. It went through many lives, as I posted in an animated gif last year, and I finally pared it down to the elements that I thought it really needed. This was supposed to be another in the series of "Ghost of the Past" but it definitely has a different story than the others so I'm letting it into the world on its own.


A new home for Abe...

A few months ago I completed a series of ten paintings and immediately installed them in the Freeport Square Gallery in Freeport, Maine. The series is entitled "Mummies of the Civil War" and features prominent officers on each side of the fence. There are 5 Union men and 5 Confederate men, each molded into their own mummified form, to be preserved in their history for eternity.


The link between the Civil War images that I'm so drawn to and the history of encaustic paint going back to Egyptian times is what inspired these paintings. They each measure 10" x 22" and are on cradled birch.

Today I found out that Abe Lincoln sold-- hurray! I'll be posting more very soon-- still working on my website relaunch and on the class schedule and renovation of Sweetland Retreat.

Ghost hunter...


Animated gif of the progress of my latest painting.  It's still in progress, just one more day working on it and I think it'll be done.  I really like seeing how this one has moved along!  I kept changing my mind about what colors I wanted it to be and put this painting aside for a while.  Then I decided to turn Abe into a rooted being and it all started to come together.

Abe and Me- Progress


Abe and Me
Originally uploaded by Jamie Ribisi-Braley
A progress photo of a new encaustic painting I started today. Part of my "Ghosts of the Past" series, this one features a great civil war image of Abe Lincoln visiting a camp.

This is my largest encaustic painting yet and I wanted to show the scale so I took this cheese-ball pic of me holding it :) This is just the first layer of paint and I've since added another-- this one's going to take a little bit longer than the rest! Fusing the layers is an arm aching experience but I still really enjoy it!

The top of the painting has a pink sky and the bottom, so far is a greyish green. I'm thinking of using alot of grey on top of the underpainting but I'll just have to see how things go! I love not having a plan and going with the flow- so to speak!

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