New painting in progress-- I thought I'd photograph it at the end of each session because I'm always fascinated with the layers and evolution of a painting. This is an oil on linen and is 50x60" which is a very large piece for me. In the beginning of a painting, I usually have no idea where it's going; no plans, nothing. I just get out the paint and see what happens. When I talk to people about a finished piece I usually tell a story of all the phases it's gone through..."You should have seen the painting underneath this one-- it was so frustrating and I couldn't figure out where to go next so I just covered it with a new painting!"

Well, I'll try to document all phases of this one. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I can already see myself painting over this.

Current phase after the 3rd sitting:

in progress

another in progress

Working in the studio again and the weather has been so nice that I'm able to open the windows and bust out the oil paint! This is making me immensely happy! I haven't used my oil paint for quite some time and have really been feeling the need to use them again. I've been using casein and some acrylic for the better part of 2 years now. I really love working with casein but wanted the luminosity and thickness of oil for the ideas I'm trying to work through. But I'm not abandoning casein, by any means. In fact, both of these painting have a casein underpainting. Technically, the green one has a casein underpainting and the gray one is an oil painting over a half finished casein painting that wasn't quite making the grade. But I used it as an underpainting of sorts.

new toys: old Grumbacher oil paint, giant tubes of Sennelier, and Shiva Paintstiks

The mark/drawing are made using Shiva Paintstiks, which are pigment compacted into a stick form with a minimal amount of linseed oil and wax.

I had been taking a break from the studio after a long productive time working on the CSA project. I needed to redirect my mind and figure out what's next. When I go through this process, I usually think back to things I know and how I studied art ... figure drawings, self portraits, still lives ... but I didn't necessarily want to take that route. So, instead, I thought OIL! Digging through my oil supplies, I found some really old tubes of Grumbacher paint that were given to me; the colors are not my typical color palette (there were mostly Thalo greens and blues) so I thought it would be the perfect way to open up and try something new. As you can see in the green painting above, I had fun using them and think I'll definitely add them into the normal rotation.

Halloween is my super-favorite time of the year! It's not just the ghouls, ghosts, and vampires that get me (although I really do love that part, too!) but it's the colors!

I decided to list a set of 4 natural encaustic medium cakes in my shop as a value pack-- for those that like to buy in bulk!  I always stock up on my art supplies so I'm sure lots of others would, too!

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.

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!

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

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