Summer Reading: Plaster Studio

I was so excited to finally get my copy of Plaster Studio! This is a book by two great artists and great teachers - Stephanie Lee and Judy Wise. I've been lucky enough to take a class from Stephanie Lee, and Judy Wise saved my bacon once when I was teaching down in Arizona and ran out of encaustic medium. So, no, I didn't get a free review copy, but am a bit biased in favor of these lovely ladies . . .


I was delighted that the book includes instructions for one of my favorite Stephanie Lee techniques - Cracked Burlap! Part of why I'm so excited to get this book and learn more about working with plaster is that it's a wonderful substrate for encaustic. Once dry, it's rigid and absorbent - the perfect surface for wax.


And the smooth but cracked surface she manages to create are very tempting to me.


And the instructions are really well done - step by step photos, with the written directions right underneath. And the detailed information about different types of plaster and how to use them - AMAZING!



The book even offers ideas for making three-dimensional substrates - cages, nichos, shrines, vessels. And all of them can be decorated with mixed media - I lean towards encaustics, but acrylics can also be used. The book includes ideas for both.


In fact, the only minor complaint I have about this book is that it includes projects with instructions to put wax over acrylic . . . something I've learned to think of as a no-no. (Imagine dripping candle wax on a plastic tablecloth and how easily the wax will chip off when it's cool - encaustic on acrylic doesn't generally create a very stable bond).

That said, a lot of people - including Stephanie Lee and Judy Wise - use encaustic over acrylic all the time very successfully. They use thin coats of acrylic on very absorbent surfaces so that the wax can still penetrate the surface.

Bottom line, I loved the book. I read it cover to cover, and am adding it to my list of "must have" reference books for encaustic - especially for those who are interested in doing dimensional or sculptural work.

Playing with Leaves and Octopodes

(For those of you who are wondering, octopodes is the most accurate, though not most common, plural of octopus.)

Back in September, I got invited to teach encaustic techniques to an organization I had never heard of before - the Nature Printing Society. It is a group of scientists, educators, artists, and other geeks and misfits who love making art prints from any sort of natural ephemera that will hold still long enough - plants, fish, and yes, even octopus.

nature prints by Bridget Benton made by placing feathers
and plants on light-sensitive etching plates; plates are then inked and printed

Making impressions of natural objects is one of the oldest - and most accurate - ways of recording the essential characteristics of natural objects: this is why the scientists love it. It also opens up whole new worlds of creative possibilities: this is why the artists love it. And as for the geeks and misfits, hey - who wouldn't love rolling ink on an octopus or tramping through the woods looking for nifty leaves and branches to print?

nature prints on fabric by Bridget Benton using an inked gelatin plate for mono-printing; shown here collaged with some mass-produced fabrics

Yup - you guessed it: artist, educator, and nature-loving nerd that I am - these are my people. I eagerly accepted the invitation to teach - it seemed like a great opportunity to learn some new things! In fact, doing the work to prepare to teach an encaustic class for nature printers opened up some new possibilities in my own work - I played with pressing leaves and other natural objects into the wax, and using oil paint to pick up the impressions. This led to a whole new series of work that I showed (and demostrated) during Portland Open Studios in October and at Guardino Gallery in December.

encaustic with oak leaf impressions

And I had a great time teaching at their annual conference at the Oregon coast. The whole group is so open to learning and sharing techniques that I felt completely at home. I took several classes while I was there, too, but there was one that had me giddy with excitement: Octopus Printing. Now, fish printing or gyotaku, is pretty well known in the U.S. as a Japanese import: you ink up a dead fish and then gently press paper onto the inky fish surface to pick up an impression. Using octopus as a giant rubber stamp, however, is not as well known.

gyotaku, or fish print, made by Nature Printing Society member

But I am deeply drawn to octopus. Octopodes. Octopusses. However you say it, I love their sensuous shape and suckerness. And to get a chance to print them? How could I resist? We started out with small ones, sold for food at local Asian markets. Thawed, cleaned, and dried, they are remarkably easy to position and print. They can also be re-frozen and then re-thawed and used again for printing. I admit, this is not for the squeamish.

me with my first octopus print!

several of my wee octopus prints!

I would have been happy just to make little prints. However, some local fisherman had caught a large octopus in their nets: knowing that we were in town and looking for non-commercially viable catch to print, they saved it for us. Several brave souls from the Nature Printing Society, including our intrepid Octopus Printing Instructor, Sharron Huffman, cleaned and gutted the octopus so that we could do giant octopus prints.

Sharron inking the large octopus

Sharron after the first print was pulled from the octopus

Now, Sharron has been printing octopodes for many years - she's as drawn to them as I am. She had one specimen, purchased at a Seattle fish market, that she carefully conserved and used for years to print from. She even has a detailed how-to on her website. Now, if you're lucky enough to live in the Portland area, and want to do some hands-on octopus printing, she's having a workshop in her home studio in February! Oh yeah - you can bet I'll be there!

print of large octopus tentacles by Bridget Benton

large octopus print on silk by Bridget Benton

If you're interested, here's the info: Sharron Huffman will teach Beginning Octopus Printing February 12, 1:00–4:00 p.m. at her home studio in Milwaukie, Oregon. $65 plus $15 materials fee. Limited to 5 participants. Contact Sharron at slhuffman@mac.com for more information and registration. I hope you'll join us!

participants in the octopus printing classroom, Nature Printing Society workshop, 2010

Gallery Walk 2010: Guardino Gallery

It's Last Thursday on Alberta. A few Last Thursdays ago, I had an opening at Guardino Gallery - sharing space with amazing sculptor Julie Fiedler, and I never posted about it, so I thought I'd give you another little virtual tour.


Most of the show was encaustic work. This piece, "A Wish and a Prayer," was one I really struggled with, but I love the way the shape of the praying hands and the wishbone echo each other.


I think this piece was my favorite in the show . . . the piece has a lot of dimension, and the cat's cradle is actual string suspended over the moonlit sky . . . I want to do more in this series, but it's incredibly difficult to construct and work the multilevel surfaces; it takes a lot more time than I have right now!


Here's another piece that rocks the multilevel surfaces . . .and takes full advantage of the scroll saw my father-in-lawish gave me two Christmases ago. Here, the heart sort of turns into an octopus on one side of the bridge and a tree on the other . . . the bridge is Portland's St. Johns Bridge. I'm not totally satisfied with this one . . . I think the octopus is maybe a little much. I think I want to keep working on this one, maybe pull the octopus tentacles back a little bit and make them more vine or root-like.

A few more encaustics . . ."What is Left Behind" and "Recipe for the Moon." Each of them includes some collage elements . . .

This is a diptych . . . my first really successful one. I had just finished reading an article on bower birds, and somehow the drawing hand and the heart only really came together after I added the bower bird. It feels like the bird is making a bower in the heart . . . there's a seduction of some kind happening in the painting. At least for me. It's always interesting to me what other people see in the paintings.


Here, I'm combining encaustic on the panel and the panel is mounted on a reclaimed drawer decorated with acrylic, tea bags and resin. More hands. More tea bags.


And here's a look inside the gallery . . . me and Julie's stuff looked really great together! I had a few collages up, too, things I'd worked on while I was up at Whidbey Island this summer.



And this Last Thursday's opening at Guardino on Alberta with Katherine Dunn and Lisa Kaser looks AMAZING . . . and there's a Dia De Los Muertos opening at Fantasma on Alberta featuring the work of Alea Bone and Linda Rand . . . be sure to drop by and check them out!

An Artist A Day: Auction Tonight!

Last month, on April 21, I had the chance to sit in the window at Muse, a local art store at 4224 SE Hawthorne, and start on an encaustic painting. Along with 33 other artists - each scheduled on a different day - I was working on a piece to be auctioned off to benefit Schoolhouse Supplies. You can see all of the work that got created, and all the work that's up for auction at Muse's An Artist A Day website.

Here's the piece as I started on it, working in the window at Muse, and beginning the background.


Next, I added the image of a heart . . .


After I got it home, I added additional imagery - bees and honeycomb - and worked more on the colors.



And tonight, you can go over to the big opening at Muse and bid on the piece from 6pm - 8pm, though I think the bidding closes at 7:45! Prices start at only $75, and the pieces are medium-sized, 16"x20". Proceeds help buy art supplies and get them into the hands of artists and teachers in the public schools - what could be better than that?

Here's the finished piece, called "Where the Work Gets Done."

Encaustics in West Linn

The Portland Chapter of the International Encaustic Artists has a lot of amazing artists in it . . . If you missed our show at the West Linn Library, I just want to give you a little taste . . .

The variety of the work is amazing!

A lovely piece by Susan Freedman.

Chicken portraits by Shannon McBride, art teacher in Lake Oswego School District.

Beautiful arctic landscapes by Kimberly Kent, the only plein air encaustic painter I know!

A piece by the talented Linda Womack - author of the highly recommended encaustic how-to book Embracing Encaustic.

A few of my little pieces on the left, and a big beautiful piece from Amy Stoner.

Some lovely encaustic photos from Vicki Moser, who is also a wonderful graphic designer.

More encaustics by Vicki Moser, as well as expressive works by Robyn Bogardus.

Deeply textured, organic work by Manuela Kalestiantz.

Triptych

Not long ago, the International Encaustic Artists issued a challenge. A triptych challenge. So, I made a triptych using some sample boards I had started during classes, and some other encaustic bits and bobs. This piece is absolute proof that you can make art without a plan, and that you can make art with studio leftovers. I had a wonderful time stacking the little encaustic panels, collaging in map parts, and incorporating the window to get them all just so. It speaks to me of leaping, jumping, journeying.

I've still got a bit of work to do, but this is how I photographed it for submission to the juried IEA show. I had a very hard time photographing this . . . The colors are a little washed out, and there's shadows, but hey, I rose to the challenge!

Encaustic Experimentation: DEMO lite

I've been prepping extra samples for my Wax and Fiber class at Art Unraveled next month, and have been having a lot of fun with some lace I picked up at Knittn' Kitten. It's a huge pattern, machine-made synthetic lace, and looks like it was probably designed for curtains or something similar.

I laid down a few layers of encaustic medium (wax and resin) onto a birch plywood panel and some light colored encaustic paint (wax and resin and pigment), fusing each layer. I then burnished the lace into the surface with an old spoon. Next, I laid down some additional encaustic paint and fused it in.


Here's a close-up of what it looked like with the lace still on it:


I waited for the wax to cool a bit, then peeled the lace up. It left wonderful patterns in the wax, and I then filled those patterns in with contrasting wax. After building up more layers, fusing and scraping back, you can clearly see the bolder patterns of the lace!



I also embedded some thread in the surface for extra detail . . . . I am really loving combining wax with as many media as possible!

Monday's Give Away & A Crafty Update

GIVEAWAY!

Here's the first studio clearing give away: A collection of over 100 simple shape Style Stones by ClearSnap/Color Box. They're flat-surface beads that you can stamp and color and decorate like in the sample bracelet . . . I got them on clearance a few years ago, and they have sat in my studio ever since. If you want them, leave a comment by Monday, February 23rd, and I'll randomly select a winner and ship them off anywhere in the continental United States.

As for the crafty update, I got to spend a big chunk of the day in the studio today . . . very much needed. It had been way too long since I'd really spent a good chunk of time just making art. I worked on some artist trading cards for ArtFest in April. I'm using a stamp made from one of my octopus drawings and a bunch of old security envelopes mounted on watercolor board.

I also started working on a new encaustic collage . . .

Opening at Guardino Gallery

Friday night was a big night - Guardino Gallery on NE Alberta had the opening for their 8th Annual Little Things show, and guess who had some work on display? Well, Linda Womack did, and Jennifer Mercede, and Mar Gorman, Kim Hamblin, and Diane Archer and a bunch of other artists and . . . me!

Here's a display of some dimensional work - encaustic and acrylic and assemblage.

Here's a close up of one called "View."

And here's another one called "Skeleton Key."

Here's another display of some flat encaustic and collage pieces. I think the one with the typewriter is my favorite.