New Collage Paintings, again

A couple of new pieces I developed from workshop samples. I'm not sure if either of them is finished, but they are both finished for now. I'm teaching Scribble Collage as a two evening workshop tomorrow and Thursday in Manchester, VT, through Green Mountain Academy. Then next week I'm off to The Queen's Ink in Maryland for my five workshops in four days stint. Meanwhile, I'm focusing on making collage paintings and still experimenting with encaustics. All good fun and hard work!

Studio Place Arts Workshop

Here are a few pix from the Scribble Collage workshop I did at Studio Place Arts in Barre, VT last Friday. The top photo is a collage I did: I challenged myself to make a collage with ONLY scribble painted papers, no layers and layers of paint, as is my usual m.o. I found myself paying a lot more attention to composition, but it didn't seem to cramp my intuitive style. Five fabulous and creative women came to the workshop, and we spent the whole rainy day happily making gorgeous papers and then using them in collage. All of the participants claimed to be beginners at art, but they showed sophisticated visual sense, and picked up on the techniques quickly. I love teaching this workshop! The next one I'm teaching at Studio Place Arts will be on January 28. I'm offering an Art Basics workshop focusing on color, composition, and materials, and using paint and collage as the medium. More about that as I develop the projects and themes. Thanks for visiting my blog! And thanks to those of you who have taken my workshops!

The QUEEN'S Workshops

Yes, it's time to visit The Queen's Ink, in Savage, MD again!!! This time we're offering FIVE workshops in THREE days, November 4, 5, and 6. Yikes!!! We'll begin with Scribble Collage on Thursday, all day; then in the evening we'll do Collage in a Box, which is a handmade hinged box with a set of collage note cards. On Friday we'll make a panel book - a special type of accordion book, in which you can use your scribble painted papers, or anything else to decorate it or add content. On Saturday we're going to make little dream houses in foam core, using collage and found (or purchased) objects to bring the dreams to life! Saturday evening is a new workshop, the Jewel Box, which incorporates paper and glue-gem mosaic. I'll post a close-up of the mosaic here, to whet your appetite. Hope some of you can make it!!

Workshop in Westford

This Saturday, October 9, I am teaching a workshop at Ink About It in Westford, MA. We will be using foam core as a substrate for making dimensional collages. There are still spaces available, so check it out if you live within driving distance! Here are some examples of foam core collage projects. Ink About It carries a huge variety of papers, stamps, and supplies for paper crafting of all sorts. I love teaching there!

encaustic experiments

I took a one-day encaustics workshop back in April at the Studio Place Arts in Barre, Vermont. I got OBSESSED with it, of course (everyone who tries encaustic seems to get obsessed). Eventually I set up a workspace in my studio devoted to encaustics, and have been experimenting a bit. A little bit, that is. Between collage-painting, teaching workshops, and still doing some freelance art, I haven't carved out nearly enough time for this, but little by little... baby steps. So today's project was to experiment with ways of getting a smooth surface and translucent colors. I set up a heat lamp (the one I used to brood baby chicks this summer) over my substrate (plywood laminated with hot-press watercolor paper) to heat it up before applying the beeswax and encaustic medium, and I kept it warm between applications. Way more experimenting to do with this heat lamp set-up, but I did want to share this one little result. For the forseable future, my encaustic "pieces" are all to be viewed as playgrounds. Experiments. Not even works in progress, just playing around to get a feel for the material and practice techniques. OK, I mentioned the chickens. Here is a picture of them on their first day at my house back in July.