Edmonds Art Studio Tour 2013

The Eighth Annual Edmonds Art Studio Tour is this weekend.  I can hardly believe that we started this so long ago.  Nor can I believe that it is this weekend.  I have just barely managed to get ready in time, and I am usually very good about doing a little at a time over a few weeks.  Not this year.

This year I will be showing my long legged people, abstract landscapes and encaustics.  A few of the paintings you will see if you come this weekend are below.  I also have a few encaustic cubes that have resulted from all of my recent experimenting with encaustic painting.

Still Immersed in Encaustic

Well, I am still heavily into encaustics.  I haven't painted with acrylic for a couple of months.  I guess I needed to expand a bit.  I am very frustrated learning this new medium, but I am also having fun, so I guess I will continue.  There is a steep learning curve, and I am having to do a lot of reading.  The best sources I have found are Patricia Seggebruch's books and Daniella Woolf's first book.  I have been experimenting with a lot of the ideas from the books and some are coming out better than others?  What I really need is a workshop, preferably a five day one.  I haven't found anything I am interested in before the first of the year.  Daniella Woolf will be having one in early 2014, but I don't have a date yet.  Patricia's Encausticamp is not until next July, and I can't wait that long.

Here are some of the pieces that I like the best from all my experimenting.  As you can see, I am into black, white and red right now.

More Encaustics

I am still buried in encaustics, trying to remember what I learned 8 years ago with Trish Seggebruch and experimenting with new ideas.  I am primarily making messes and scraping the wax off to reuse!  However, I am keeping some of them.  Here are a couple of the ones that did not get scraped.

The third face down does not still have a glop of wax on the eye!

Encaustic Painting

Recently I spent an afternoon with Tracy Felix at ARTspot playing with encaustic.  I have not painted with encaustic for about eight years and swore I would not get involved with it again.  I love the look of encaustic, but it is expensive to work with and can be toxic if you are not careful about temperature and ventilation.  You also use a torch!  Since I know myself well, and know that I am a very careless artist, I chose to just not use encaustic.  Now, however, I am hooked again.  So far I am keeping the window open, watching the temperature carefully and not using fire!  Below are a few of the pieces I have created.  I am really only experimenting at this point as I have much to learn. 

Burridge Workshop

I spent four days at Bob Burridge's studio in June, and had a great time as usual.  These studio workshops only have 7 artists rather than three times that, which can be the case at some of Bob's other workshops.  I have been attending Bob's workshops for I think 13 years, but it might be more than that.  I find him inspiring and I love to watch him paint.  I was not really prepared this year to work on a particular body of work, which I should have been.  I had been so busy playing with encaustic and paper clay that I had not given it much thought.  Therefore, my work in the workshop was everything from non-objective abstract to abstract landscapes to figurative.  I am posting a couple of them below.

Edmonds Art Walk

I was the featured artist for June art walk at ARTspot.  Tracy just sent me some photos from the event, so I thought I would post one of them here.  It was a fun evening, with lots of folks to visit with, even though it was pouring rain the entire time.  There are some intrepid souls who venture out despite the weather.  They are the true Northwesterners.  See Tracy and I below.

Edmonds Arts Festival Juried Show

I had two pieces selected for the Edmonds Arts Festival Juried Show this year.  They are both below.  The first one, called "A Pair and A Half" won an Honorable Mention.  The second image below is the other selected piece and is entitled "Mardi Gras".

"A Pair and A Half" can now be seen at ARTspot in Edmonds.