FULL MANDALA - Finally Finished

I have finally finished the Full Moon, Growth mandala, that I began at our New Years Intention Setting Workshop.  Interestingly, last night was the full moon, and on Saturday March 21st, we are facilitating our Blossoming into Spring Mandala Retreat Day.  It usually takes me about 3 months to get around to finishing a mandala.  Doing these retreat days gives me an opportunity to begin a mandala, as well as set the energy for the intention that I focus on.  

This mandala was about opening  to new possibilities.  I love how the roots sink deep into the earth, and parallel the extending branches into the night sky.  The work of creating intentions is both inner and outer.  I can see that in my life as I begin to network and set seeds for new direction in my work life.

We will be holding this workshop in my studio on the first day of spring and drawing our inspiration from the flowers of spring.  Join us if you are in Northern California.  For more information you can link to our website at the Creative Arts Studio.

More Photos from Weekend Encaustic Workshop

Here are more photos from the Encaustic Weekend Workshop.   

 Here's are more photos of the encaustics.....

Cheesecloth and voile fabric dipped in beeswax has  amazing three dimensional possibilities
                                  This is a photo transfer piece that I did.
This little encaustic was a sample piece I did incorporating collage, lace and metallic string dipped in beeswax and some scraffito texture..
Another piece incorporating the magic of voile fabric ( tutu material) and cheesecloth
Photo transfer is the basis of this piece with alot of carving done into the wax. 

Another photo transfer piece done from a zerox of an original drawing by Patricia Waters


Mystery abounds in this piece with  lots of cheese cloth dipped in medium.


Heres Liz sharing her process and the story behind this mixed media encaustic painting.





And last but not least, this one has much dimension created by flowers dipped in medium, but it doesn't quite show in the photo.  There were quite a few more pieces that the group members did that I didn't photograph, most of these were done on the first day. I was so into the process on the second day that taking pictures slipped my mind.    I am looking forward to getting back into the studio myself and completeing some pieces I began...but this week is all about taxes and cleaning up my studio for my Friday Medicine Art Group.  I will post more of my work in a later post.  Whew...

Photos from Encaustic Workshop

This past weekends Encaustic Workshop, was invigorating, stimulating and totally engaging.  Everyone who participated was excited and had a great time.  I found the time just flying by as we explored texture, transparency and mixed media on the first day of the class.   

On the 2nd day our focus was continuing to explore personal themes, while adding photo transfer to our pieces.  
I loved witnessing everyones process and emerging art, as well as how each person developed in moving through the learning curve of the media, and finding their own ways to express themselves. 
I took alot of process photos as well as the images themselves and decided to post as many as possible, to show the range of expression that came through.  

I will add more to a later post, so as not to overwhelm with images.   The color, texture, freedom and variety were a joy to see.
It rained all day on Sunday and it was so cozy and enveloping in the studio, as well did art for hours on end.   How I love to do art with others, what a gift of joy.  
Everyone enjoyed themselves so much that we set another day to do studio work in encaustics

in April.   
I feel so blessed to have found my way to sharing this process with others as part of my life work and art.

I will post more images soon. ....

Playing in the Studio..

I facilitate a women's art support group twice a month at my studio....it's called the Medicine Art Group.  Art making is a medicine when we open to its ability to transform and soothe our souls.  

We have been working on intention setting since the begin of the new year, using art as a way to visualize our intentions.  This past week we moved into creating Affirmation Cards as a way to support our intentions for the New Year and as reminders to hold positive thoughts.   It was so much fun, I plan to keep making them myself, perhaps a whole deck of them.  Here are the ones I created on Friday.

I am facilitating an Encaustic Weekend at my studio, next Sat. and Sunday, so this past weekend I have been having so much fun getting prepared for it.

I have been cleaning wax off of brushes, rearranging,  making encaustic medium and altogether having a great time, priming the pump so to speak. It seems like part of my creative process is to periodically, organize, revision, clean and renew my enviornment.  

 I am excited by the possibility of doing more encaustic classes, and am begining to see myself moving more and more into my artist life, now that I am no longer teaching at the JC.  I am beginning to revision the layoff as a positive...an opportunity to really live my dream and make a financial success from it.   

My affirmation cards, tie into this, by opening to abundance coming to me as I grow my dreams, out of the simple pleasures that fill my soul....all the while allowing for Great  Mystery to provide the details.

I will post photos from the Encaustic workshop next week, so stay tuned. 

Encaustic-ly Speaking - Pushing the limits of my creative process.

i have been struggling with another encaustic ...which started out with high hopes and has shifted quite a but through the process.  Here is the background I began with....planning on transferring an image of a suspension bridge that I photographed this summer up at Howards Creek Ranch .  A magical place I love to stay at,  up on the Mendocino coast, in Westport.  

It reminds me of a pregnant spirit of some sort.

Here is the photograph I tried to transfer.

The resulting transfer reminds me of a tower, golden, and lighted, but its wasn't the image I was working toward. I realized there was too much dark, not enough contrasting light, and I had to presss and scrape and still didn't get an image that in any way resembled the bridge or what it was I was trying to convey. I also realized my background wasn't light enough....so ...

So I decided in the process of scraping off the ink transfer with a bone folder, to keep playing, and I transferred a tree and a bird over it, began scraping into the dark transfer grasses and the textured became as important as the image.   This is where I am so far, taking it into a new direction.  I am liking it, and plan to paint more encaustic into it, and rub some inks into the scratching and see where it goes... This is what I have been up to, following  my process and seeing if I can take this somewhere new.  Learning all the while. 

MANDALA - IN PROCESS -

The weather is perfect for drawing mandalas, working with prismacolor pencils on black paper is soothing, and puts me into a very calm place.  I began this mandala during our New Years Intention Setting Mandala Workshop.  I haven't worked on it very much since.  Perhaps I was waiting for the rains, we need them so much and now slowly they are appearing.

Here is the original mandala I did that day, in just the black on white.

My focus was paying attention and walking through the open doors...however the full moon that day really influenced my work, hence the moon is the portal to possibilities in this mandala.
Sinking deep roots into my source as well as my skills, ancestors and visions, while expanding my reach and begining to set leaves of growth towards new directions......

It felt important to sink my roots in the greening of the earth

This mandala is still in process....As I expand beyond my boundaries into new directions...More to come

View in my studio.....

The other day I began taking radom shots of my work spaces in my studio of what I was working on and just everything around me.  So I decided to post those shots today.

Here are some encaustics that I reworked and are just sitting around...
This is the beginning of a New Years Intention Collage that I started in my every other Friday Woman's Art Support Group.( Medicine Art Group)  ...it is in process, not sure where I am going with it yet.

Random collage goodies....

An altar to Frida

and more collage pieces.....thats it for today....its a beautiful day and I want to get out to the studio as well as go for a walk...TA DA....