Encaustics Workshop with Daniella Woolf

I am just back from a five-day encaustics workshop.  What an experience!  If you do not know what encaustics is, go here or here.  The workshop was given by Daniella Woolf through North Country Studio Workshops at Bennington College.  Unbelievable group - the students AND the teacher were all accomplished artists with a lot of inspiration to offer.

One very cool thing with encaustic is doing collage on paper.  We did a group collage in which every student made one horizontal collage piece, and then we assembled them as a hanging scroll. Here is Daniella Woolf and Wen Redmond (do check her out!!) assembling the scroll:

 And the finished scroll hanging in the window overlooking the back field.


Here is the first stage of a self-portrait I did, as I am in the midst of my online class "Exploring the Self-Portrait".  I drew directly onto the wax (encaustic medium over paper laminated to a plywood panel) with china marker:

 I was not too thrilled with the mouth, so after scraping it off, I applied a coat of white encaustic paint mixed with a lot of medium over the whole thing.  then I cut out another mouth from one of my sketchbook drawings, and applied it with medium.  I added a few more details in graphite, and built up color and a bit of collage on either side of the face.

Here are a couple other photos from the workshop:

Another 8"x8" panel, "Ink and O's"

This untitled piece is on a panel coated with plaster.




This piece has many layers of wax as well as encaustic collage:

"Shino"
Shino is a kind of traditional Japanese ceramic glaze, some beautiful examples of which I found here.  The Alizarin Orange coming through the white wax reminded me of this glaze:





"Cruciform with Rust"


"Red Square 2"




"Red Square 1"



My work space

R&F Paints provided a vast array of encaustic paints and medium.

  I am so grateful to North Country Studio Workshops for granting me a scholarship to take this fabulous, life-changing workshop!!  I know it will enrich my work, and I hope it will enrich my teaching.  I am also grateful to Daniella Woolf for being so generous with her knowledge and resources.  She has two fabulous instructional DVD's available, which you can purchase here.