Lake Powell in Oil

Lake Powell in Oil

Image Size 12" x 12"

Oil

Here's another Lake Powell painting.  I just can't seem to stop painting this beautiful spot.  This one's in oil on a gallery wrapped canvas with the sides painted so no frame is necessary.  I really like that look.

Tornado Warning

Tornado Warning

Image Size 8" x 8"

Encaustic

        Being a California native and never having been anywhere near a tornado, I have no idea what the sky would look like before one hits.  Of course, I'm pretty sure the sky isn't this colorful but that's artistic license for you.   

Encaustics need to be applied to a surface that is porous.  I have a lot of 8" x 8" bisque tiles (unglazed) that I thought would be perfect as a support because they are certainly porous.  It was weird to work on this surface because for some reason, the wax in the middle would not move when heated and only the wax on the outside edges maintained its thickness.  The wax in the middle seemed to sink completely into the tile which is why it refused to move.  I continued to add a lot of wax and finally got it to do what I wanted.  I may try working on these tiles again (because I have so many) now that I know that working on them is a bit different.  I really like the end result and that's what's important, right?

Eze

Eze

Image Size 10" x 14"

Watercolor

Eze is a medieval town in France that just oozes charm.  It sits high on a cliff and overlooks the Mediterranean sea.  The oldest building there was built in the 1300s.  The narrow walkways between the buildings wind through the small town and up to a cactus/succulent garden that has a great panoramic view of the tile rooftops and distant sea.

This was a study that I started many years ago for a larger painting. I don't typically do studies before painting a large painting so this was unusual.  The large painting has been done for a long time but I never finished this study.  As I'm cleaning up and trying to become organized, I decided that I had to either finish this or throw it away.  Of course, you know that I have a very hard time throwing things away so I finished it.  It's not a masterpiece but it's done and that's good enough for me for this one.

Dreamscape

Dreamscape

Image Size 14" x 11"

Encaustic

One of the things that I love about painting with wax is the dreamy feeling that can be achieved by melting the pigments.  This started out as an abstract but as I worked on it, I began to see a hill with trees on a foggy morning.  I am really happy this one!

White encaustic pigment is one of my favorite colors to work with because it is totally opaque and tends to break apart in a unique way when heated.  I think you can probably see the difference in the white around the edges (the white of the ground support) and the white in the middle of the painting which is the white encaustic.