Color Wheel Mandala - the Circle , Triangle and Spiral- Finished

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - 

things I had no words for.
Georgia O'Keeffe

This is the color wheel mandala that I started at our mandala workshop last sunday.  I have been laid up since the workshop with a problem knee.  It has been raining everyday, and I have found such solace in the drawing I have done on this mandala.  Working with the color wheel, mixing the fine pencil point of one color into another on the lovely nubby paper, has a comforting healing effect.  I was lost for hours, watching the colors emerge, blend and over lap.  Playing with the shapes, witnessing they way they interact and the stories they seem to tell me intuitively is an endless pleasure.
Truly healing.  Blessings to all.

Encaustic Tree Series - All of six them......

I have finally completed my summer time encaustic vision....photographing  trees and doing encaustic paintings and  phototransfers of the tree images on top of the paintings.  

I have learned alot in this process.  Working with the encaustics in a new way, exploring color, line and form...as well as developing a finer eye.  I have been noticing and photographing trees for months now and began to look at trees as individuals with unique personalities, flaws and idosyncracies....as if they were people.  Here is the completed series.

I found myself looking for the perfect tree.  What were my criteria, unique tunk, branches that stood out, no background to divert attention and alot of sky showing through the branches.  Then I began to think about standards of beauty, in not only trees but people.  What is beauty, what makes imagery stand out.  Each tree had flaws, the branches were changed by life and wind, and trauma.... again and again the parallels with people began to emerge.  This has been a very powerful and evocative process for me.  

My final tree in this process, is the most subtle and evocative.  I am ready to move onto another series...I am all fired up with the possiblities.  My work with encaustics has taken another turn.  I am looking forward to more exploration of this new direction