Encaustic

Encaustic is an ancient painting medium.  The Egyptians and the ancient Romans used beeswax based paints and the work has lasted for centuries.  The encaustic technique involves suspending pigments in a hot wax medium and applying to a rigid support. I enjoy exploring all of the creative possibilities of this technique and I'm having a lot of fun with it!  As with mixed media work, this medium is very receptive to layering. I enjoy embedding photos on thin papers and other ephemera, and layer with both opaque and translucent hot wax. I make my own medium (a combination of 85% beeswax and 15% damar resin) and I mix my own colors, using raw and manufactured pure pigments suspended in the melted medium.

Below is a sampling of work done in the encaustic medium, some including collage elements.

Current Work

Mini's

Chasing the Sun Series

Fractured Earth Series

Searching for Hope: Townscapes

Encaustic Landscapes, Expressionistic, Inspired by the local area. (Separate page)

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"Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is."  Mason Cooley

When we look at a particular work of northwest coast art and see the shape of it, we are only looking at its after-ife.  Its real life is the movement by which it got to be that shape.  Bill Reid, Haida carver

"Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making of something after it is found"  James Russell Lowell, American Poet

"It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing."
Mark Rothko, artist