July 4th

detail


full piece

just a nice little collage piece...8x8x2 inches....kinda looks like fireworks, no? Nice to see some red!

july 3rd

we can all this one "colony collapse". it is created on an 8x8x2inch piece of lumber. there is broken egg shell collaged into the wax surface. the eggshell is from a Ukrainian egg painting class I took this spring...after working on the lovely bee themed egg for about 1.5 hours, I dropped it into a dye jar, and a fracture occurred.....so, I thought I would continue to work on the raw egg, and at one point it just "exploded" into my lap. I thought the shell could be used in some type of project...I think you can still see the bee theme in the dye....fast forward to the encaustic conference. I met another artist that had a piece with egg shells embedded into the wax surface..and she said that it was an ancient Japanese technique. So, who knew? Because the bee is broken, fractured, and embedded into the surface, I think it could represent "colony collapse disorder"..that the honeybees are facing...

july 2nd

encaustics are so hard to photograph! this piece is on 8x8x2" lumber again....the vintage picture of a woman is behind a glass microscope slide.the rest is collage and encaustics...

july 1st

this is created on a 6x6x2" piece of lumber. there were lots of layers of blue, pink, pearlescent white and copper encaustic paint. The Buddha and lotus pictures presented themselves and they fit in perfectly with the underlying paint. I have been having fun with my Yogi Tea teabags...they have a message on the tag...and you will see them in the next couple of pieces used as a collage element!

june 30th

the third piece of the triptych. the image collaged in the middle piece was sent to me by Caterina Martinico of Santa Rosa, CA. This fun card of 4 women fit perfectly with the two "wing" pieces. I love the way that this middle piece with the portraits grounds the piece and gives it life beyond decoration! Thank you so much to the Beeswaxteam for coordinating this "object challenge"!

Each piece is created on a 8x8x2" piece of lumber.

Piece a day June 29th

Some friends and I are doing "piece a day" for at least 2 weeks...I think I will try a month at least....to create, photograph, and post a piece of new artwork a day...hopefully created on or near that day! this is a challenge for me, as I usually work in diptych or triptych form...here is my attempt for the day. This is encaustics and encaustic medium over a recycled paper bag. The bag already had this fantastic black print on it....tune in tomorrow to see the suprise which is going in the middle! Although I really loved this flowy composition, it seemed too decorative, and needed a focal point...

beeswax mask collaboration

After reading "Plan bee" by Susan Brackney, http://www.planbeebook.com/ I decided to make some beeswax death masks of my face. I ordered some algenate from the artmolds company http://www.artmolds.com/

John helped me make some molds of my face that I filled with beeswax. The masks were placed into a beehive the second week in June...things are progressing nicely!