Home Sweet Home

8" x 6" encaustic and mixed medium on wood

A couple of months ago, my good friend, Patty, thought of me and my Tiny Little Houses and offered to put me into contact with Ecumen, a local non-profit specializing in senior housing. She had been contacted by them in regard to their gala, "No Place Like Home" that will be taking place the beginning of November.  At that time, Ecumen will be celebrating their 150th anniversary and having a silent auction to raise money for their Awakenings Project. 

I immediately came up with a visual idea upon hearing about it all. The image above shows the completed piece.... and I have to say, it did indeed seem to be a perfect fit for the cause    :)

Mushroom Patch!

At least that's what comes to my mind when I look at these. I realized I needed a holder of sorts for my encaustic pieces as I worked on them. And so I looked in the garage and found a scrap of peg board (don't you love it when you can turn a scrap into a purposeful idea?!) and some screws. I drilled holes into the bottoms of my round-doweled handles, plugged the peg board holes with screws coming up from the underside, and set my handles down upon them. It's perfect! As the screws aren't permanently attached I can move them around the peg board to accommodate different sizes and quantities      :)

(I use velcro to temporarily attach the handles to the underside of my work in progress.)

I have an idea.....

And it involves circles of all sizes (even though I started out small to just see where this idea would lead me). After drawing out circles about 2 1/2" in diameter, I got out my jigsaw:

and then I got out my drill:

I took my newly cut buttons and used velcro to stick them to my handles. I then started applying encaustic medium.....

 

I decided I would try out a few ideas (Tiny Little Houses, polka dots, flowers etc), just getting a feel for what would work or wouldn't. Below shows a few steps into my process:

 Layers of other mediums into it further give you the end result (well, at least for the idea itself - I still have to play around with my idea on what to do with them - stay tuned!)

So have you guessed it? They are buttons! So very exciting, don't you think? I'm quite pleased with the end result and have come away with the conclusion: my Tiny Little Houses don't belong on such buttonscapes but instead in their own landscapes without any circles cut. I love the polka dots and the flowers work, too.... I think it's best to go simple in design for such buttonness, but there are such possibilities within it all yet to explore! I'll keep you posted.....

Paint Over or Under Paint? Part 2

A bit of time ago, I posted about this idea.... And so I went with my curiosity to see where it would lead me. Taking what could have been interpreted as finished and not well-liked (by me), I pushed the boundary of it all and continued a new painting upon then this foundation. Below is the result. I have to say, I definitely like this painting better for its details and layers that have resulted from this additional time spent. And best of all, I had fun doing it!  :)

don't you just love the yard?

Bingo!

As promised in one of my previous posts, I'm catching you up to speed on what I've been up to. The above painting seems from so long ago.... Regardless, I'm thrilled with how it all came together. Tiny Little Houses + a style reminiscent of my oil paintings on pieces of reclaimed old wood and doors + the encaustic medium = Bingo!

This piece (still untitled! yikes! I do not like that, but haven't taken the time to figure it out.... any ideas please let me know!) and my other most recent encaustic and mixed medium encaustic landscapes can be found at the Northfield Arts Guild ~ Northfield, MN is a wonderful day trip from here in case you are looking for such an experience......

Play time!

This last weekend I participated in the largest art tour of the country, Art-A-Whirl. I am, nearly always, inspired by such an event; I love sharing and telling with others about the creative path I find myself on and the work that has resulted from this journey. In turn, I learn about new ideas, thoughts, and perspectives - all of which I find invaluable. It can be from a fellow artist down the hall or a someone I had never met.

My inspiration started earlier this time around. I left Friday evening with an idea from such conversations and went home to research the encaustic world further. With the whirl of the weekend, and then work, I had to put my play time in the studio on hold for a few days....

Jump forward to yesterday when I visited a local gallery to specifically see the work of Bethany Kalk. Combined with her wonderful imagery (inspired by nature - what could be more wonderful?) and painting with wax technique (oh! the layers and delicate line highlighting select forms) I was ready to jump in and play (though it was hard not to be fearful after seeing such work).

The following images are the result (please excuse the glare! (I may need to recapture to give justice to, what I think is, my progress made.....)):

I explored layers and colors

in a very different way than before.

      

But of course, there's a Tiny Little House....

The completed 6" square painting on wood.
I wonder.... what shall its title be?

What do you think?  I would love to know!

I'm curious to give this combination another try.... As always, stay tuned  :)

Paint Over or Under Paint?

This has been the question of late. I have always been attracted to the under layers of color and texture poking through the surfaces in a painting. Thus my own painting in oil and acrylic has resulted in this visual history.

Remember my posting back in January? I had experienced the freedom of melting away an encaustic painting I did not love. Doing away with the idea, the imagery of it all - once and for all. Nothing remained of its being, except for a faint recollection that only I may have.

Now I am thinking that there might be something there to work with after all. What if I were to continue painting waxy layers until I LOVED it? It's a curious idea, I have to say. And one that would be completely foreign to me in this medium. 

I have 3 pieces in mind I could play around with. This is one of them:

Yes, perhaps in and of itself this is a good piece. I do really like it. But I am not in love with it as I am with my newer work (and yes, at the time of it's creation I did love it). Of course I completely value seeing the progression (where I started (as this painting shows) to where my Tiny Little Houses are now at) and everything does deserve it's place in time. Yet, I keep coming back to this idea of waxy continuation and so.... I might just have to give it a try. How else would I know? So stay tuned. I will certainly keep you posted!      :)

Stretching my brain a bit

So my dear artist friend, Trisha, came out the other day. As I was showing her what I have been working on in the studio, she started musing about the idea of combining various components that I have between my different mediums - all into one piece. 

One idea she invited me to explore was the use of patterns in my encaustic paintings. This is something that was not entirely new to me as I had combined my Organic Digital Designs that first weekend I was introduced to encaustic. But as in all things, I, and my work, had grown/evolved since then and that perhaps, just perhaps, the marriage of the 2 would be different this time around.

Over lunch we continued the conversation (and I have to say I was warming up to her suggestion and could visualize the idea!) and later she waved good-bye with a firm go and play in the studio!

And so, following her direction, I printed out in varying scales, a couple of different patterns, complimentary to each other. I then cut out shapes and sizes that worked with the direction I had in mind.

After a couple of trys, "playing" as she called it, and what I so want to embrace, (I'm trying to not create a perfect (in my mind, reaching my high standards) piece every single time the first time around. I'm trying to instead embrace the idea that less-than-what-I-hope-for is just fine - especially if I am exploring, getting messy and just plain having fun!).

 I share with you the piece below, My Tiny Little House on a Hill with a Patterned Sky......

and here's a detail. I do have to say I'm especially pleased with the textural hill - with the varying values of green  :)  What do you think???

I have to say that my head hurt by the end - it did feel like a lot of work to stretch my comforts and play! and so I felt the need to end my studio time with a bit of cheerful comfort.....

P.S. since then, I have been noodling around in my head what I feel I learned from this day of play. I am looking forward to continuing this thread and am curious to see where it leads me.  As always, stay tuned!  :)

Just a normal day in the Studio?

It started out like any other day in the studio - hot plate on, wooden cradles prepped, inspiration flowing...

And then my dear cat, Gabe, took up residence in my stand space (thankfully temporarily - though of course, he had to move on his own accord, how would I dare disturb his fuzziness comfort?). 

And then it was my dear dog, George's turn. He's a bit bigger.....

But thankfully, inspiration wasn't halted as I continued with my line of an idea. Balloons as you can see - cheerfully colored and painted in a loose, yet controlled manner (remember my posting back in September?). 

Yes, I have been thinking about painting quite a bit lately, with oil on wood - as I used to do, in the olden days, if you will. I have been kinda missing it, but haven't yet pulled out the oil paint and brushes. Instead, I have been noodling around the idea of painting in a new manner or incorporating the new into the old - spurred on by this last September's class (see above link). 

And so, out of the blue, my balloons seemed to encompass both ideas of mine - the old and the new - painting in encaustic vs. oil definitely allows more spontaneous brush stroke, I think (at least for me, right now). I'm curious to see how it continues to evolve! Regardless, I'm quite pleased with this direction!

So though my day started out normal, I would say my end result was not as anticipated! It was even better than normal  :)

Here's the finished piece, 5"x 7", from my Tiny Little House series. I can't help but title it "Up, Up and Away!" as it's kind of Up-esque. Don't you think?

Completely inspired in a spiral-ly sort of way

sharpie on paper captured my idea.....

We went to see the movie, The Lorax, the other night and oh! it was so wonderful! Not only for the important message of taking care of Mother Earth, but the colors, the shapes of it all! I walked out of the theater with my mind completely awake with the images that had soaked in over the span of an hour and a half. I just had to sketch out an idea for an encaustic landscape for one of my Tiny Little Houses. Can't you just see it? As always, stay tuned!

I absolutely love the trees!

Completely erased!

A couple of studio sessions ago I had created an encaustic painting that left me feeling quite unsettled. I had too many ideas crammed into this 4" x 6" canvas that it more resembled a smorgasbord than a composition.

And then I had an idea.... why should I continue to have this in my studio when I didn't love it completely? I know there are some pieces you don't love and you hang onto them and someone will love them and they eventually find a home. But this piece, I know, was not to be one of those.

And so I turned this unloved smorgasbord upside down on my hot plate and melted the layers of wax and images right off! It was so freeing!! I've never done anything like this before with my art - making this choice to not live with something that just doesn't fit, or trying to make it fit would be like jamming a square peg into a round whole - wasting energy all for not. It was just not meant to be and now, through this drastic action of scrapping a completed piece, I now have piece of mind and a canvas ready for a new composition that I know I'll just love.....

Words with Art

"One (Tiny Little House)"

I have, over the years, been curious about the impact of adding a word (or two or three), a thought, or a sentence into a work of art. I know, as a viewer myself, how influenced I have been by the creator's combination of the two. I have fluctuated between liking this and not - perhaps it's my preconceived notion that needs reworking: that the added word or words make the piece more "crafty" instead of "art". Another curiosity......

Granted, you may already may know how important titles are to me with my original oil paintings. As my grandmother said, a painting is unfinished unless it has a title. This has stayed with me and I have found myself open to different possible titles as I progress through the process of a painting. And because the title and the painting are so intricately connected I think they can each help the viewer to gain more information about what they are viewing. The story is more complete for it.

Now when it comes to incorporating a word into the work of art, now that seems maybe not so different? As the title would then be the word.... Hmmm....

And so yesterday, in the studio, I was compelled to bring forth the combination of the two in one tiny little house encaustic painting. What do you think? I am personally quite pleased with the results and am eager to continue this line of thought....

The corner turned

Combined with my interpretation of a recent critique and with my latest found inspiration (it's quite curious how this mental processing all works out during the process of it all - all the way to the end), I went to work the other day in my studio with a newfound sense of direction. I'm quite excited by the results! 

As you can see, the foundation of which my Tiny Little Houses are built upon are becoming more of a focal point. There is grass and hills and checker board grounds..... I feel I am finding the balance between the simple and rich beauty of the medium and the ability to combine different patterns and forms all together in one piece. 

What do you think?

The next step

There is progression found everywhere. From sunrise to noon to sunset, from the bud of a flower to the flower to the pod, from buying groceries to fixing a meal to eating... Nothing is the same from moment to moment as each being/experience follows it's path of life.

I think the same goes for a series of artwork. The creation process also follows a progression. What has been discovered and learned in the past will dictate what step comes next in the future. I love the lack of stagnation and this means there are only unlimited possibilities. The only limit is ourselves.

And so I received my order the other day, new pigmented cakes of beeswax from R&F. I have an idea and it involves my tiny little houses and the addition of iridescent pewter, iridescent pearl, iridescent german silver and iridescent brass (which is much brighter than I anticipated, but who knows? this may be a blessing in disguise!). So as always, stay tuned and see what comes next into the world of my tiny little houses  :)

The finishing touches....

are taking place in the studio as I prepare for this weekend's large studio event, Art Attack. I first attach the custom frames to the boxes that make up the wax background for each and then I gently secure a tiny little house in the center of it all. Add the hardware and my signature on the back and they are ready to go! 

My Tiny Little Houses, are making their debut! and I'm quite excited to share them with everyone! If you are in town, I hope you can stop by  :)

Tiny Little Houses.... The Movie!

Here it is! The one and only, uniquely created by Pretty Fluffy Chicken and me. I'm super excited with how our first video together turned out. What do you think?

Building homes for my tiny little houses

Don't you just love it when unexpected combinations occur outside of our control?

Sometimes it can take years before 2 ideas meet.... In this case (a small wooden box for an expired idea that had fallen to the wayside (a while ago) and the need (most recently discovered) for a home for my tiny little houses), it was probably only a bit over a month before these 2 ideas were hitched together.

I played/experimented around and created the perfect recipe for the backdrop for my tiny little houses.

The photograph above shows one of the steps. Encaustic covers the sides and the back of the wooden boxes. The next layer of oil will create the tonality for the atmosphere I'm desiring..... Stay tuned  ;)

The development is expanding....

Neighbors?!

I started expanding upon my little houses idea with larger boards. This is one of my latest, in process, a few layers (of wax) in, and yet a few layers to go before its completed.

A series of little houses

So here is what I did with those little houses I drew. Granted it's a bit hard to tell through the photographs below, but I'm pleased with how each layer of wax added another layer of subtle interest and depth to create the overall landscape. And I love the size!; these all measure 3 1/2" x 2 1/2". I'm currently working out my idea on how to present them..... I can't help but think of creating more little houses with orange, lavender, turquoise doors (just to name a few of the infinite possibilities!).....

"Little House with a Blue Door"

"Little House with a Brown Door"

"Little House with a Red Door"

"Little House with a Yellow Door" 

Ah... the aroma of molten encaustic medium

I made another batch yesterday as I was nearly out. There is nothing like the aroma of wax - especially when it becomes warm and then liquid.

I sometimes forget how prep work is also a part of the process - not to be devalued/labeled as a waste of time/an obligation to check off the list before one can be creative.

I appreciate the reminder to be mindfully creative in whatever task is at hand (well, though maybe this idea would be a stretch with scooping cat litter)   :)