August 15, 2006

Blue Sky


blue sky encaustic 6"x6" $100
Wax is a medium which I enjoy tremendously. This is one small (6"x6") landscape I did in a series of 8 with encaustic medium I made with damar crystals and beeswax , R and F pigments and oil bars. And a lot of heat. I mean a lot. It is a hard to control medium, but that is the pleasure of it. Who need predictablity in their art? Ok, once in awhile it is good. But wax keeps you on your toes.

I have been busy with photographing the other goodies we are putting into our shop ... including lovely letterpress cards from Egg Press which just came in today, (here is a sampling below) and some jewelry from Freear Art as well as some other surprises. Oh yes here is one surprise here ... remember back when I did a spotlight on Kitty Genius - aka Ashley G? Look for some work that she did just for us at our new shop at artstream! We are so excited!
more to come.... Mixing it all up in the shop with one of a kinds is a lot of fun and a lot of work. But it is all part of the beauty of buying something made by hand, one at a time, from an artist.

The word for the day is ... construct ... like the final pieces of the project, the tower of babel, and those tinkertoys which I just can't seem to get around to playing with anymore...

13 comments:

Funky Finds said...

beautiful! and great additions to the shop susan!

Unknown said...

Love the wax piece. best encaustic art I have ever seen.

Sounds like the online gallery is filling up. fantastic.

Willie Baronet said...

Nicey nice nice. :-)

And please tell me that I thanked you for the cool shoe??? I lerved it!

Anonymous said...

I like your encaustic painting, Susan. I haven't used R and F pigments before. How different are they from mixing regular oil paints in with the beeswax an damar?
PS - I noticed in your bio that you're a Leo, too. Happy (Belated?) Birthday whenever it is this month! :)

Susan Schwake said...

thank you all for the nice comments!
susanna: with oil paint you should soak out the oil on papertowels or other absorbant layers first to keep the oil out of the wax mixture. i use r and f pigments as they are in pure form when you buy them. i also use pigment powders (with a mask) as they are without binders too. keeps the wax good and hard in the final product.
just was the way i was taught. i do use oil paints too sometimes when i run out of pigments but i always de-oil them first.
oh! my birthday was the 1st. long live leos!

Anonymous said...

Love the wax painting, its so full of 'feeling' and mood...

Madeleine said...

i love the wax painting. i have never used wax before, but i think i should try it. it's a beautiful piece, and has been photographed so well.

diana said...

you are like the energizer bunny... you just keep going !

Herb Mandel said...

Susan: I stumbled across you while reading through the Greenjeans site, which I stumbled across by looking for links to NH and green living.
Anyway, I thought you might be interested to see my dad's Blogspot, herbmandel.blogspot.com. I post it for him, but he generates all the content, and there are links to his artwork there. I think you might like the Spiroleander Art, which is something he feels he's sort of invented. Anyway, I'm in NH, so I feel a remotely connected to you in that way. I haven't gotten around to establishing my blogspot, beyond naming it.
I will check back with your site and explore your stuff, maybe even make the trip to Rochester before the summer's over...
Carol Robidoux

Anonymous said...

Susan, here's an easy way to link to my dad's site...
Carol (again)

Herb Mandel said...

Sorry, here's the link.

C. Robin Janning said...

It may seem repetitive, but I absolutely love the encaustic -- simply beautiful.

Tongue in Cheek Antiques said...

such rich artistic cleverness you gather for us. faithfully sharing varied art for us to taste. oh merci!