Winter Solstice

Apropos of the season is the photo of a new encaustic painting. Very difficult to photograph encaustics. I've become fascinated with trees and have been retrieving the many photographs I have of trees a collection of twenty years worth of images. I'm amazed at how many images I have to work with but have not yet decided exactly how I want to use them in the series. At least I have a few started using a technique of drawing in India ink on the panel and then building up layers of encaustic medium and pigment. I've been experimenting with different "burning in" methods as well..mainly the use of heat from underneath the panel and infrared light bulbs. Both are very tricky to control and I've begun to realize more and more that I don't have total control of the process and will not have total control no matter how many hours I spend using the medium for painting.

I just viewed "Le Belle Noiseuse". It was four hours of heaven for an artist to watch another artist drawing from the figure..Well the entire DVD is not drawing, there is a story so to speak but the drawing was mesmerizing. After viewing I took out my extra long filbert brushes and discovered new life in my paintings of the figure this past week.

Then there are the holidays. It is hard to keep working with all the hubbub around me but I've been managing quite well to keep the work going that needs to be delivered after the first of the year. January will be a very busy month to say the least.