Encaustic Tools-my favorite 5

This post was originally going to be my Top 3 favorite tools for Encaustic painting. When I went to the studio and started looking around and taking a few pictures, I realized that it was not possible to limit myself to 3, so it quickly became 5. 

These are my "go to" tools, the one's I find most frequently in my hands as I go about a day painting in my studio. It is always fun to discover new tools and what other artists use in their trade. Sometimes a creative repurpose makes a great tool, a tools that is purchased with a single intended use becomes a studio  essential in an unexpected new use. 

A fair amount of tools that are in use for encaustic are cross over tools, intended for use in clay work or in the kitchen. The main reason being that they are metal or silicone and work for multiple uses and can be cleaned with high heat without melting or otherwise altering. Once a kitchen tool is used with wax, it is a studio tool and does not return to the kitchen for safety purposes. So the buy 2 rule goes into effect!

Here is my #1:

It gets ranking as #1 by my scientific usage meter. It is always to my left side (lefty here) while I am painting. I get a little anxious when it goes hiding, because I am so accustomed to it's shape and size in my hand, other tools can do the same job, but they just don't feel right. Yes, a simple silicon kitchen squeegee/scraper. I remember purchasing it for a cold wax workshop-not for encaustic painting. But it quickly became a hot wax studio essential! I use it mainly for puddling up hot wax on my palette as it tends to spread out and become hard to mop up with the brush for painting. It works great and is super easy to clean up with a few minutes against the hot palette surface and a paper towel wipe off. 

kitchen squeegee

Tool #2:

The award goes to this sharp pokey ceramic tool, since I am not a clay worker, I do not know it's proper name. It is the go to tool for getting shed brush hairs, little imperfections or dog hairs out of a painting surface. (yes those cute dogs sometimes like to hang out in the studio), if I pay attention and don't put paintings near the floor I don't have very many dog hairs to deal with---learning.... This is also a good tool for fine carving in a cooled wax surface as well as signing an encaustic painting by carving in my name. It is always within reach on a painting day.

sharp pokey clay tool

Tool #3:
This is my trusty Iwatani torch. I do have a couple other torches, using either butane or propane, but this is the workhorse of the studio. Painting in encaustic utilizes fusing with a heat source, there are many ways to accomplish this, depending on the style of painting that is being done, for my painting purposes I find this torch my favorite. It provides a reliant and adjustable flame source and it is fairly small, pretty ergonomic, and not tiring to lift for many minutes/hours of fusing in a painting day.

The lovely Iwatani torch head

Lucky #4

A long awaited visit to "Toyland", aka The Clay Store at the Archie Bray Center in Helena yielded a quick intense shopping spree. If you live in Montana and have not been to the most wonderful place on earth, hint hint, it's not Disneyland....get in your car and take yourself and your camera to the Bray Center, trust me!  I have posted a few times prior of visits to this wonderful place, check my archives. Okay, back to the subject of tools.

I discovered all sorts of clay tools I had not seen yet in my limited exposure in general art store shopping. The first time I used this tool (another one I don't know the proper name for-help me out if you are a clay artist), I understood why it was a little more expensive than the prior versions I had used. It was sharp and solid and easy to control when needing to scrape or adjust a small area of wax. Wow, what a difference a higher quality tool can make!

sharp wonderful clay scraper

Last but not least #5

Upon  discovering what fun could be had by using a pattern marker, my hunt for this tool was on. Quickly to my dismay, I learned that the newer versions of this classic sewing tool were sad imitations of the former glory. They were flimsy, with little noticeable imprinting from the barely shaped wheel. Lucky for me, I have a willing sister who frequents thrift shops and she found some older models of the pattern makers that have stood the test of time and make great marks on a waxy surface. While I often shy away from stencils and tools that make a more manufactured look, but this baby can be used to make marks that are both whimsical and organic appearing. And it's Red.

This red baby is easily the most popular tool of students in my Intro to Encaustic Studio classes.

the magical red vintage seam marker

There is it, my top five! A squeegee, a sharp pokey clay tool, the Iwatani flame thrower, a sharp precise clay scraper, and the magical seam marker. What are your favorite tools?

looking for connections, or the pod story evolves

As I look around my studio, is it mostly filled with landscape images, especially trees. I find myself continually drawn to portraying my take on the natural world around in my art. (that's a whole other post for later)

Somehow I keep seeing seedpod images popping up around me in my exploratory art making. Where does this come from, besides the fact that pods are just plain cool to look at? Seedpods are kind of funky looking typically-which I love, think poppy seed husks! I think pods are often overlooked, they come on subtly after the big show of a bloom or fruit. If they fall off their stalks and if there are multiples they often make an interesting pattern on the ground, where they lay around until the magic happens. Or they hang onto their stalk like some otherworldly addition. Each plant produces pods uniquely designed for itself, like it's own fashion statement. Come spring or summer and they send up those tiny tender shoots that become new plants. Pretty amazing I say!

Who doesn't love bags and containers? Seedpods are custom made containers. They are full of the hidden potential of the precious seeds the husk protects. 

If you choose wisely  you can pick up a few pods, stash them in your pocket and then scatter them in your garden. Through the magic of nature, you will have wonderful new plants arrive after a few changes of seasons. 

So I believe it is these traits that draw me to them:

the uniqueness of the pods themselves. the potential for transformation. the magic. the beauty. the fragile tactile nature. the subtle colors. the curves and shapes. the quiet rattle of seeds inside.


Here are a few samples from around my studio of where pods have been popping up in my art over the last decade or so. 

Pea pods and lotus pods from older acrylic paintings. These were some of my "personal art", experiments with color, texture and abstracting around 2007-8. 

Back in 2010-11, I had a small group of artist friends who would meet and review weekly goals for their art and also daily drawings. While I often could not attend regularly due to having a job with a schedule too, I did participate when I could and enjoyed the push for the daily drawings. 

Images from copyright free sources and my own drawings have made there way into many encaustic class demo pieces over the last couple years.

Sharing studio creative time with an artistic friend led to me making some ceramic pods. This was my first exposure to working with clay. I attempted to paint them with encaustic paint, and quickly learned the challenges of applying paint that needed fused with heat to 3-d objects. It was still very fun and motivating to learn some 3-d art skills.

Felting was something I was very actively pursuing for a couple years while living in AK. I finally put it on the back burner to focus on my encaustic and oil painting. I have had some fun teaching some intro to nuno-type felting this year at Paper Airplane Designs in Livingston. This lead to more experimenting and some more pod making, some successful, some not, but they made good homes for my air plants. Who knows what form these pods will take next in my experimenting? I only know they will come back again soon in some form with all their magical potential.

New Year, New Focus, New Painting, Great Cause

Artists often get asked, "How long did that painting take you?". It's not our favorite question to answer. Every painting builds on our former paintings and experiences. Some paintings go quickly and feel like they paint themselves, others take a lot time and are a challenge to bring to completion, some land in the middle of this battle. Usually the ones I am most pleased with are either the quick "painted itself" variety, or the ones that presented multiple challenges to complete and finally come together. 

In the past I have sometimes put images of paintings in progress out for the world to see. However it is a frightening proposition to do so. Sometimes the painting as started takes another direction and changes completely. Other times I get complementary comments about the painting that add a certain weight or expectation to the painting (in my mind) that I can not shake in order to execute the painting in a free and creative manner. 

All this leads up to my first completed painting of 2016! Yay! It is an encaustic painting, 18"x18", titled "Standing Together". I took a photo of the painting each time I worked on it, and I'm now ready to reveal how I developed this painting. 

First we need to look out my studio window and see my muses, they saunter through our yard often in the winter and I think they must be curious about the smell of beeswax, as sometimes they come right to my window.

So-on to the painting, I started something new with this painting. I often have ideas, words-typically emotions flying around my head when I decide on a subject for a painting. This time I decided to make them more concrete and see how that would guide my painting process. So I first wrote them down on the reference photos (my own) I was starting from. Then I decided they needed to be part of the painting, so I wrote them on the wood panel. Next time I will write them again, but might use graphite instead of a big black marker, for a little while I was worried they might show up in the painting, and not in a good way.

Above is another painting I started at the same time, I don't think I had decided on the daily process photos yet. But you can see what I am talking about, my encaustic paintings are on birch wood panels, and I wrote the words boldly on the surface.

First day in the life of a painting. Laying in colors and basic shapes. Trying to follow the patterns of darks and lights. I always am really excited at this stage, everything is exciting and possible.

More defining shapes and colors, still pretty exciting at this point to me.

More layers, colors getting more intense, building a good base to work from.

Painting is starting to become an awkward teenager. Somethings working well, some not so much, but too early to make serious changes, gotta let it develop a bit more first.

More layers and subtle color shifts. 

And more layers and color and shape shifts. Tree trunks are getting some great texture now, but the white, which I was quite fond of, is starting to glare. Now time to make some new decisions.

Dropping some blues and lavenders in to the tree trunks, oh-not so sure about that. And did I mention this painting has a deadline? Usually at this point I might stop and set it somewhere I see out of the corner of my eye and wait until one day the answer to what it needs hits me suddenly, and I wonder why I didn't see it right away. But this one is now due in about a week and I am not a good procrastinator-it scares me too much when it involves my creativity. So I spent some time researching; past paintings of mine,  as well as looking to other artists works, and studying every group of trees I see while out on hikes, trying to find a way to translate the 3d world into a cohesive and exciting interpretation in my 2d painting.

I'm still not happy with it, more research and study. Hum... send an image to a good artist friend in AK. Confirmed it "needs something", but not what.

More changes, oh it's getting better now. I'm liking the way the trees seem to relate to each other. It's starting to live up to it's working title "Standing Together" now.

After a carefully chosen "fill" color-a deep earthy red called Mars Red, it's done and I'm happy with it. This is a quick shot with my iPhone in some dim studio lighting. It's a big challenge with encaustic, photos just don't show the nuances.

Standing Together, 18x18 encaustic painting

Now to see what it will look like in the frame I have chosen for it. 

Whee-happy! 

So I'm calculating this painting has taken 16-18 hours of direct time in the studio. + all the time leading up to it and the times it floated through my mind while not in the studio. Well I'm not guessing time to paint as much as I used to, one of my requirements for the MAP (Montana Artrepenuer Program) I am working on completing is to log studio hours and be able to figure out costs and time to more accurately price artwork and possibly make a living, or part of a living from Art. 

"Standing Together"  is my 2016 donation for our wonderful local nonprofit Reach, Inc. They provide services to adults with disabilities and empower them to reach their highest potential. They have an annual fundraiser the "Have a Heart  Art Auction" next month. It is a great event either to attend or donate to, or both. You can donate to this great nonprofit and come home with some great Art by attending their event!

One of my favorite places

Yesterday I got to tag along with my husband and go up to Helena (he had to go for work).
My main priority was to go to the Archie Bray Center Clay shop and look for tools for encaustic painting. Many clay tools work well for scraping and shaping wax as the are metal and can be cleaned with heat.

I also stopped in at Aizada Imports, as the owner Paula had seen my greeting cards and was interest in carrying some in her shop. She imports wonderful woolen and felted good from women in Krygyzstan, I need to go back when I have some time and peruse her lovely shop. I may need a pair of slippers at the least. 

Back to the Bray-I wandered the grounds and Galleries in addition to the clay shop. I did find some great new tools, as well as some duplicates to add to my class supplies.

Happily it was not too smokey and not windy. I attempted to capture a bit of light on some of the pieces. Just quick snaps with my point and shoot on auto-need to step up my game in the photo department.

There is so much history here and all the untold (to me) stories that the art all around holds. It is truly magical for any creative person to experience. 

Stay tuned for studio tour part 2, I will be working on it in the next few weeks, in between keeping busy painting for some upcoming shows. More info later on that too!

studio tour, part one

It's been almost a year since I moved my studio to our house. We had hoped to find a place with an out building that would be my studio, but that was not to happen. I still have some dreams-depending on building codes...we did end up with a nice large yard.

My studio is really great and it is well removed from the rest of the house, which decreases the interruptions that having a studio in your home can cause. It is great just to walk down the stairs and be there. I find I often can make use of a small bit of time, instead of a 15-20 minute commute to a studio. Most of the time I relish the solitude of my studio and feel I produce best when alone. I've got two rooms that connect with an open doorway, they both face our backyard at ground level with large windows. The windows face north and maybe a little west, so usually the light is soft and indirect. Bliss!

I didn't straighten up and took these pictures in the midst of a small working frenzy. This is my encaustic studio, it's hard to get a good feel for it without a proper lens for interior pictures. The dimensions are roughly 12' x 14'. It is the smaller of my two rooms, but I chose it for encaustics due to it having a door to the outside, so it has really good ventilation in the warmer months. I find I am able to have 3 encaustic students for classes, it seems to work well with space and equipment needs.

modified drafting table

work space

cart of all things encaustic

storage, storage

my usual work space, end of a painting day