Paintings

Throughout my life, I have been interested in studio art. This post is going to dive into some of my past pieces of work that I have created. I have always been interested in working with blues and it comes very naturally for me, that is the reason the three pieces of work I am sharing revolve around the color blue.

The piece of artwork you see above is made from entirely beeswax mixed with oil paints. This type of work is called encaustic painting. Encaustic painting is a big stress reliever for me. The process behind it involves mixing the paint color of your choice with the beeswax and then heating it all together. After melting the wax with the paints and mixing it, you use your paint brush to apply the color wherever you choose on your desired platform. After applying the wax where you would like it, you then use a heat gun (equivalent to a very hot hair dryer) to move the wax in different ways to create designs. I know this does not seem very hard, but trust me, it is.

The next piece of artwork you see above is made from seeds being painted in the encaustic form. Encaustic painting can be done on any substance and any platform if it is primed correctly. The process behind this piece of work first involved picking the seeds out of my front yard and then gluing them in the design that I liked onto the board. This piece of work was a little more difficult because the seeds are rounded causing the wax to fall in the cracks. This is one of my favorite pieces of artwork because it is different than what I would normally create. The piece of work above was created during a time when I was spending hours in the studio creating everything that came to mind until I found my perfect idea.

The last piece that you see above is not only made with beeswax, but with water colors and inks as well. The yellow, blue and black background on the inside was created by getting a bucket of water and putting colored ink into it. The process behind this is tedious because you cannot mix the water too much or the ink will combine and will not give you the image you are looking for. You dip the piece of paper entirely into the water letting it soak until the ink has been absorbed. The brown outside background that you see is simply made from watercolor paints and an excess amount of water being mixed into it. The two boats are made from a combination of watercolors and ink pens. The ink pens are a special type of pen that can be bought at most art stores and here. The white string you see going across the page is twine dipped into white wax until I got the color and thickness that I wanted.

I hope you enjoyed learning about one of my passions and it inspires you to go out and try something new.