Biloela 2 day Workshop

Last weekend I headed up to central Qld to teach a 2 day workshop to Biloela visual arts group. After a train and 2 planes I arrived to find my suit case had not followed me. Luckuily Qantas were very helpful and sent it in a taxi the very next day.
We set up at the Redeemer primary school and the art room was great with metal benches and plenty of power outlets.
There were 11 students and all very enthusiastic encaustic beginners.

So two great days went so quickly and I got to see a bit of Biloela and enjoy the company of Maria Wiley and her family. We sat up late talking art and discovered we agreed on so much. The same types of work inspires us both. So I had a fab weekend and got paid for it isn't it a great job!

Encaustic ATC's

I have been making a series of encaustic atc's or artist trading cards. Using small canvas boards to work on, I have also used jumbo playing cards. Its great for experimenting and trying new ideas.
I have been playing around with orange solved papers,rusting papers,burning paper,bleeding tissue papers and all that kind of thing.Then combining that with some image transfer. layering colour and text as well.
The boards are gesso coated but as I am using lots of paper to cover that it seems to work out okay and they are only usually give aways so I dont worry too much about the archival qualities of them so much.

New workshops

In may and June I worked with Wollondily Arts group teaching 2 workshops. The first being my encaustic

beginners class followed by Image transfer worskhop.
They all came along with such great enthusiasm to learn the techniques and made some great work.

New work

I have been making a series of work called birdsong using encaustic,shellac and bird images with ancient script. In this one I also incorporated some saved teabag paper.
I have been collecting these and drying them out. I love the idea of pleasure twice round. Once as a lovely soothing drink which refreshes the artist and then next as part of the artwork itself.
Now I am on the hunt for coloured teabags.. what  about licorice and rosehip won't they be fun to use.

Workshops Doing Well

So I haven't written for a while but I have been so busy teaching and making that I just did not get the chance.
My workshops are going well and I am teaching at least once a month somewhere in Australia.
This upcoming weekend I am teaching Wollondilly Arts Group an image transfer with encaustic workshop.
Last month I did an encaustic beginners class for them and they were a great bunch of students. Here are some pics of the work they made.

They made some great work and everyone had a fun day, me included and my son Alex who came along to be my assistant.