Princess of the Borderland

"Princess of the Borderland" -- 20x24 inch encaustic & mixed media on cradled wood panel. Prints available on Etsy.

This is the last painting I'll be doing before leaving for Florida on Saturday. I really enjoyed creating this wonderland-esque, circus scene. It was such a joy to use all of the brilliant encaustic colors. And I experimented this time with more etching lines. The lines extending from the tent were a bit of a "found art" moment because I didn't know what they would really look like until 'inking' them with oil paint -- and they actually remind me of the strands of lights often hung from circus tents, so that was a cool accident.

Thank you all so much for your congrats about the Artful Blogging piece and for your enthusiasm about "GOLDEN." I'm excited, too! I will probably check in for a few posts while I'm on vacation, but the blog will be on the restful side until I return on April 1st. xox

For Someone Beautiful

Commissioned Painting -- "Beautiful" -- 24x24 encaustic painting & collage on wood.

This is my newest encaustic piece and a commission for a very special customer. There are many, many layers in this painting -- tons of collaged material beneath the wax and many finely etched details within as well. My favorite part is the little family on the right side. The daughter's name is very, very lightly carved into the wax on her skirt. She may not even see this detail until she's all grown up. :) I'll need to take a few more photos of the painting so that the details are evident -- but I liked the way it looked sitting on our hardwood floor against the white walls of the dining room, so I thought I would share!

And tonight is my last call for Found Art Friday submissions. Just leave a comment with your idea for our April theme, and I will do a random drawing tomorrow! xox

Suggestions for Found Art Friday's Next Theme?

"Butterflies at Sunrise" 10x10 inch encaustic painting on cradled wood. Original available at

my Etsy shop & at Caffe Portofino in Northport, NY.

I have been having more fun with violet lately. Even though it is tough to work with, I find the encaustic color to be too vibrant to resist! It was a lot easier to cover 1/2 of a 10x10 panel than 1/3 of a 24x24 one, though. Thank you all so much for your comments on my "Behind the Scenes" post last week. And no one even made fun of my outfit. You are too kind.

THEME IDEAS FOR APRIL's FOUND ART FRIDAY?

And I am still soliciting theme ideas for our next Found Art Friday. So far, I have several GREAT ideas from sMacThoughts (nostalgia) & littlebrownrabbit (Golden, Breeze, Freedom, Whisper). But I'd love to here from more of you out there. Just leave a comment with your suggestion, and I will pick one of them out of a hat this Wednesday as our next theme.

And I am so sorry for the short notice, but I will be on vacation for the last two weeks in March, so our next Found Art Friday will actually be on April 30th. And this is really, really good news because (though the details are a secret), I should be getting a good deal of PR on May 1st for my blog. But I won't reveal the details until then. In the meantime, please help us to create the best Found Art Friday ever by offering your theme suggestions for April! xox

Behind the Scenes -- Creating "Beginnings"

"Beginnings" 24x24 inch encaustic painting on cradled wood panel.

I thought it would be kind of fun to share a behind-the-scenes look of me creating one of my encaustic painting, so I chose my newest piece -- "Beginnings" -- a 24x24 inch encaustic on wood painting.

One of the fun things about these images, I think, is that they show how utterly freezing it is in my sunporch studio. You can 'see' the cold by my horrific 3-layered painting attire. Here I'm sporting thermal undewear, a turtleneck, the shirt Christophe didn't want for Christmas in 2008 and 2 pairs of pants. Despite the cold, I manage to press on, warming myself by the radiating thermals of the heat gun.

The other fun part of the pictures, is the cool transformation that occurs when I add encaustic paint COLOR to the collage that I've created on the wood. But, I have to tell you that it was really hard working with encaustic violet. It's such a dramatic bright color, so I had to really thin it down with medium. Then it took forever to cover the 24" wide area I was working with because the color was so translucent. In fact, working this largely is a big challenge because the wax dries so quickly in transit from the hotplate to the canvas. And working vertically means colors melt and drip into each other. Working horizontally can mean minimal space on a table (plus accidents when you push the right corner underneath the hotplate and melt it off...).

On the whole, I love the larger pieces. They are so dramatic. I hung this one up in my yellow dining room last night and looked at it sparkling beneath the chandelier. I don't really want to let it go...