Commission Progress

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | , , , , , , 10 Comments

I dipped back into my oil paints and got started on a commissioned painting for my friend, Sarah.  I'm so excited to make this for her new home and brighten up her space with my work!  I hope that she will love the final version and will enjoy reading about it and seeing the progress here on my blog as I go along!

She had asked me to make a painting similar to Deluge (sold last summer) but gave me complete artistic license to change around the colors, movement, feel-- whatever!  It's a rare opportunity for me to be asked to revisit a painting and it's so much fun!  I love going into it thinking of how to improve upon the last piece and make this one special.  I've been mixing some of my own oil paint and am using it to complement my store-bought paint (that purple above the river is my own handmade color!)

You can see in this first image how I begin a painting.  I lay down a very thin wash of color cause nothing's worse than facing a blank canvas! I also love to pick a color that I want to shine through the entire painting.  It will give this a nice vibrancy/glow.  I then rough sketch where I want things to go using some more paint.  Then I get right into the color.  This is how it's looking so far after my first layer of color.  (Not the best photo since I'm working at night but it's what I can offer at 11pm)  It'll change as I keep working on it and I'm going to add some slightly brighter colors.  

I can't wait to work on this more!!!

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A wonderful day!

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Monday, March 2, 2009 | , , , , , , , 6 Comments


I was surprised to find myself in an Etsy Finds email and Storque article today entitled "Yours And Yours Alone"!  Not only was it nice to get recognition in such a well put together art grouping but I received over 65 shop "hearts", tons of item hearts (including over 53 on this painting), a bunch of sales, and a couple of great emails from people!  It was such a great day!!


I'm so excited because I've also decided to take out a spot in a print ad for my encaustic supplies through Indiepublic that will go in the May issue of Cloth Paper Scissors.  I've never done a print ad before but this seemed like such a great fit for such a wonderful magazine.  I can hardly wait until May!  

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Maine Team ACEO Challenge

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Tuesday, February 24, 2009 | , , , , , 6 Comments

The wonderful Etsy Maine Team is having an ACEO team challenge.  The idea was to make an ACEO with a Maine theme that was also recycled/upcycled.  I made these three while at Jes' craft brunch on Sunday.  They are all made on top of recycled cereal and cell phone boxes courtesy of my hubby, and the collaged images are all from Country Living magazines that were in desperate need of being recycled.  Here's the skinny on them:


-"Friggin' Fiddleheads" This one was made with Kellie in mind since she loves to say "friggin'".  This one features a beautiful image of a yummy fiddlehead on top of some other local greens.

-"Sabbathday Lake Shakers" My official entry to the challenge-- Made in honor of my favorite group of people and the only remaining active Shaker Village in the world, Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Maine.  Among their many beautiful beliefs is the thought that everything must be made with as much skill, love, and piety as possible- even a chair for they thought that an angel might come and sit on it.

-"Silliness in the backyard" OK, this one was done as a joke and Susan's daughter Nell thought it was hilarious and prompted me to glue it down for real.  Featuring the many faces of Maine: Lobsters, wild turkey, roses, and ferns :)

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Abe and Me- Progress

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Saturday, February 21, 2009 | , , , , , , , , 3 Comments


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!

VAST "Welcome Spring" Trunk Show on Etsy

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Tuesday, February 17, 2009 | , , , , , 1 Comment

I will be participating and co-moderating the Etsy Visual Artist Street Team's (VAST) Trunk Show tomorrow night!  Come and take a look and meet new artists with a great range of styles, medium, and prices!


"Welcome Spring" will feature art from 25 VAST members who will be presenting their work LIVE!  Come take a peak and ask questions-- get to know us and our art!

Wednesday 02/18 at 7pm Eastern time in the Etsy Virtual Lab Gallery Room:  http://www.etsy.com/virtual_lab.php?room_id=gallery

Value Pack- Yellow Encaustic Medium

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Tuesday, February 10, 2009 | , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

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 love to put other people's Etsy products in my photos to help promote one another.  All of the encaustic wax in my shop has great handmade items to accompany them!  This one features paintings by my husband, Brian Braley.  His shop is called Discarded Treasures and he focuses on using recycled materials to make great pieces of art!  His paintings are so thoughtful and full of science, math, architecture-- you name it!  I love to see what he creates and this top one with the letters on it is my favorite, titled "Alphabet Soup" - I just love the colors and the layers!

More on him soon-- he'll get a feature in one of my "Artists I Admire" posts-- of course!  :)

Prepping Canvas

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Sunday, February 8, 2009 | , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

I've been commissioned by a dear old friend of mine to create an oil painting for her.  I'm so excited!  So I've stretched a new canvas and began priming it.  This picture above is of my favorite part of the prep stages-- I always brush on some water to release the sizing in the canvas and watch the water bead up-- I love it!  Then I brush it in really hard and get the canvas nice and taught.  Then I banged it like a drum!  What a great sound.  


I've applied the watered down coat of gesso already then went on a long walk to enjoy the beautiful day today in Maine.  A couple more coats of straight gesso and I'll be ready to paint!  I'm going to blog about my progress so that she can watch it evolve :)
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Winner announced!!!

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Thursday, February 5, 2009 | , , 2 Comments


The "Hot Mess: Painting with Wax" giveaway has ended and I used Random.org to randomly pick a winner from the blog entries! The lucky post number was #19 which is..... drum roll please!

... Penguen ....

CONGRATULATIONS Penguen!! I'll be contacting you in a couple of minutes to send you your prize! Enjoy!

Giveaway reminder! Ends tomorrow-

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Wednesday, February 4, 2009 | , , Leave a comment

One more day left for my Encaustic Tutorial Giveaway!!


Thank you all who have entered so far!! Best of luck to you!

Etsy Beeswax Team Sale

By Jamie Ribisi-Braley | Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | , , , , , , 2 Comments

For the Love of the Bee Etsy sale

During the month of February, the Beeswax Team will be donating 5% of proceeds to the "Save the Bees" research group.

The disappearance of bees on a global scale isn’t an issue to put under the carpet. Considering bees pollinate about 1/3 of everything we eat, when bees begin disappearing, we should do more than watch it happen if we want to protect our food sources.

Please come join us and show your love this Valentine's Day in an unconventional way! 

View our team comic to read more info: http://www.beeswaxteam.com/sale.html

And visit our forum thread for a full list of particpiants.
Here are your resources to help you understand CCD and for the sale this month:

To hear the Bee Team's first ever encaustic podcast
For more on Save the Bees research group
More on Colony Collapse Disorder 
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5% of my proceeds from any encaustic related item in my Etsy shop will go towards bee research. Purchase any original encaustic painting, handmade encaustic paint, Hot Mess wax painting tutorial, giclee prints of an encaustic painting, or necklaces featuring encaustic work and 5% of your purchase will automatically be donated. 

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