It’s on again….

So excited to see this news arrive in my in box this morning, it’s time to sign up for the Sketch Book project again.  I signed up rather late in the project last year, so I am keen to get in early this time…  So I can procrastinate for months and months and cram it all in at the end – again!  What is it creative types – why do so many of us work that way?

It’s such a thrill to have my little sketch book out there in the world, especially when an email arrives to tell me someone has looked at it.  I can’t help wondering what they think of it, someone I have no other connection with, flipping through my sketch book on the other side of the world.

I’m thinking I might choose “Monochromatic” as my theme this year, I like working monochromatically; I think I can get comfortable with that.  Are you going to join in this year?

A strange little job…

Today one of the jobs on my "to do list" is removing the wax residue on these little copper balls.

They will be part of my third attempt at the still in progress “Entwined in the Community” painting. The wax that is on them is left over from when they were imbedded in the first attempt.

I’m off to boil the jug to get them all cleaned up. What strange little jobs are you up to today?

Cooking in the studio

Cooking today, but in my creative space, not in the kitchen…

Ingredients

• 1 kg pure bees wax
• 200 gr refined bees wax pellets
• 220 gr damar resin crystals

Method

Mix together all ingredients and melt over low heat stirring constantly until combined (about 30 minutes). 

Ladle mixture into patty cake tins and wait till cool and resolidified.

Pop out of tins and store until next painting day!

My favourite kind of cooking – mixing up encaustic medium.  It feels so good to have a big fresh batch all ready to go.  The possibilities of it are endless; I wonder what paintings this batch will become…

For those of you following my disaster in the studio yesterday, take 2 didn’t go well.  But I will resurrect this piece, take 3 will be the winner – I just know it.

Disaster in the studio…

While threading the twine through the copper balls late yesterday afternoon I bumped one – hard, I cracked the wax supporting it near the base which meant it was no longer embedded firmly.

I was furious with myself and walked away to calm down, when suddenly the solution for how to mend it came to me.  Wanting to get it sorted out straight away, I took a deep breath and headed back into the studio, I should have just stayed away…

Heating the substrate from below was a good idea, but it required more delicacy and patience than I had to give at the end of the day.  Now I have a smooth puddle in my lovely textureL.  

I don’t think it is reparable; I am going to try, this morning while I am feeling fresh, but I think I am going to have to end up melting the whole painting off and starting again.  It is one of the beauties of encaustics that I can do that, but it’s so sad as I really loved the texture in this piece and I was ready for it to be finished so I could move onto the next piece that is on my mind.  

I suppose these days happen to make us appreciate the days when everything goes right…

So close… but still so far away…

Not too long now in the grand scheme of things...   

but the next few weeks are going to be torture...

I just want to move in right now!