Encaustic adventure

My first experience with encaustic collage was a lot of fun thanks to sharing all the research and preparation with my friend Margaret Weiss. MW is very good at getting all the relevant information which comes in handy for someone like me who tends to just dive in and see what happens.... We decided to combine beeswax with damar crystals to make the encaustic mixture although many mixed media artists just seem to use the beeswax without damar (claudine hellmuth to name one). Maybe next time I'll try it that way.
We started with some collected bits and pieces of collage items:








Then experimented with different ways of fusing, layering, and colouring:



























We used oil wax crayons to add colour as well as pure pigments which we rubbed on with our fingers then melted in to the wax. We also melted the crayons or pigments into our melted wax ramekins then applied the coloured wax to the collage.








It got a bit messy but MW had a fabulous stainless steel work table that was quite easy to clean when we were done.








Margaret's finished piece was called "Bird" and you can see it on her blog by clicking the link on my sidebar.

Mine is called "Have Wings Will Fly". I'm happy with it for a first attempt of what will probably be the first of many.







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Gypsy swaps

I got a parcel that I've been waiting for today... It was half torn open!


Thankfully the contents were still intact.
It was the gypsy ATC swaps from paperarts.yahoo group I'm in. A beautiful collection.



This is my contribution:



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