Encausticamp Bloggerama: Judy Wise

Here's what Judy Wise will be offering at Encausticamp:

Just a little reminder that I'll be teaching at EncaustiCamp July 13-17. My class is entitled "Painting from the Hot Palette" and will cover the techniques of adding colorants (dry pigments, oil paint) to encaustic medium and then painting with those colors just as you would paint from a palette of colors in oils. The difference is that wax hardens immediately so there is no waiting for paint to dry. In addition, the texture is yummy!

I'll be throwing in some transfer techniques (the above painting includes a transfer) and some collage tips. This class is suitable for beginners as well as experienced encaustic students.

The way the retreat is set up is that you'll choose 3 instructors for 3 days of intensive wax study. After hours there will be extra-curricular activities on schedule as well. Trish has worked hard to make this event affordable as well as inspiring and we hope you'll consider joining us for a weekend of intense creativity and fun.

Hope to see you all there!!

Happy Earth Day!

What a delicious way

to spend a warm spring afternoon

laying on your back in the shaggy grass

listening to the wind singing in the trees

and to the happy songs of birds as they celebrate

new life in their cozy nests...

drawing pictures in the clouds

and soaking in the rays of a rare sun!

I am at peace with the world.

Happy Earth Day!!

Encausticamp Bloggerama: Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

Another peek at the talented Trish who will be instructing at the upcoming Encausticamp all encaustic art retreat:

It's just me.
Having fun.
Fitting into this thing called life.
Playing with my passions and making them work!
Stitching up torn edges and frayed seams.
Daring to stand on the edge: and take the leap.
Committed to staying in my committments.
It's just me.
A lucky, lucky, LUCKY girl humbled by the fact that others want to come have fun; figure out this life; play; stitch; dare; commit; alongside me.
It's just me. Come on! Let's do it~
Foundations in Encaustic: EncaustiCamp 2011
Everything deliciously 'no way' becomes 'why not' and ends up here as a 'look at what we can do!' Join me to indulge and explore. From plaster to tar; wood icing to panpastel; propane torch to shellac...yes, it's all that good :)
in love. trish
Join Trish and five other instructors and six passionate assistants this summer at EncaustiCamp 2011. Three days and four nights of all things beeswaxy and beautiful~July 13-July 17. www.encausticamp.com

A Stroll Down Memory Lane

Just thought I'd share some shots of my favorite local antique store, Camas Antiques. Two glorious floors of future art projects...

Encautiscamp Bloggerama: Bridgette Guerzon Mills

Here is a preview of Bridgette Guerzon Mills' class she will be teaching at Encausticamp. If I weren't teaching, I would certainly pick this as one of my classes!!

I mentioned in my last post that I will be previewing the instructors that will be teaching at Encausticamp this July in Salem, Oregon. This week it's my turn. I am really excited to be combining two of my passions in one workshop this summer- bookmaking and encaustic. Well, actually three, come to think of it, because I will be covering mixed media techniques and incorporating those into your encaustic practice. As readers of my blog, you all know that I have been creating handbound journals for many years. But my love of making books, goes beyond binding blank journals, it goes into the book art forum.

Milagro: a flag book I created of my xrays 2005

What is book art? Book art is works of art in the form of the book. Simple as that. But when you think of the book as a medium of visual expression, well, that opens of a whole world of visual exploration! Book art is the artist's interpretation of a "book". What I love about book art is the interaction between the artist and the audience. A book is not just meant to be looked it, but opened, touched, perused. So form invites exploration, while concept also engages. My first ever exhibit I was in was a book art show in Seattle, that included two of my pieces. I have been experiementing with book art forms since high school when my ceramics teacher, an exhibiting book artist, took me under her wing and introduced me to this fascinating art form.

Sheltered mixed media book, includes pigmented beeswax 2005 published in L.K. Ludwig's True Vision: Authentic Art Journaling, 2008

It was only a natural progression that I would start exploring marrying encaustic with books. I am excited to be sharing my process at Encausticamp this summer in the workshop entitled "A Book of Images and Wax".

In this workshop we will go over incorporating photographs with encaustic with either collage or transfer techniques. We will create these on boards which we will bind in an accordian type of binding. I will also go over using paper with encaustic, one of my favorite things to do, and incorporating those creations into our book of wax and images.

If that sounds like fun to you, then head on over to Encausticamp to register for 3 days and 4 nights crammed with all things beeswax. This is a retreat that is for all levels and beginners in encaustic will feel at home here too. I think that people are often intimidated about starting to paint in encaustic, so this is a wonderful way to venture into painting and creating with wax.

EncaustiCamp bloggerama; Crystal Neubauer!

‘When you share your strengths you create competition. When you share your weaknesses you create community.” ~Rick Warren Recently I have been sharing a dialogue about a dream of developing a series of workshops and retreats where women can go deeper in their creative lives, a place where they will be supported, encouraged, and strengthened in their identity and worth as a woman and come away with the tools they need to begin to trust the voice they hear inside to guide them. A place that feels more like a community of friends who have gathered for a weekend of fun and fellowship then just a series of art-project oriented workshops. The process of using art as a tool in healing from the past and uncovering my true identity has been such an integral part of changing my life that I’ve begun to share it with other women in some of my art workshops, uncertain of how they would respond or receive it knowing they were expecting to simply learn how to create a specific project. But each time I’ve included something as simple as a breathing technique I learned in my own journey, I find at least one woman who writes to say it was the most important thing she learned that day.

As the dialogue with my artist-women-friends begins to solidify into a clearer vision of a deeper more meaningful art retreat experience and dates and locations begin to be penciled in on our calendars, I’ve wrestled with letting go of my desire to teach at some of the larger more well-established venues, but then an email shows up in my inbox telling me of how the breathing technique I shared became a lifeline during a family crisis and I know in my heart this is the direction I was intended to go. This July I will have my first formal opportunity during a two-hour breakout session at EncaustiCamp to share what I have learned along the way. I will bring a kit for each student who wishes to participate, that will include collage materials to be used as we walk through exercises designed to release that “inner-self” and allow one to experience what it means to “hear” or “listen to” their own voice and allow it to tell their story. The tools I hope to pass on in this exercise will go beyond paper and glue. This uncovering, discovering and releasing-of-self, is a journey so many women find themselves in the midst of and often without the resources or knowledge of what to do with all of these unexpected feelings and emotions. I will come, not as an expert or teacher, but a fellow sojourner sharing what I have learned along the way. Of course, encaustic art will be the main focus of EncaustiCamp, but I am excited that the intention is to create an atmosphere that will be safe, cozy, intimate and restorative. This is where art becomes more then just a pretty picture; this is where it becomes a seed through which inner-healing can flow.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Tales...

Last Monday, I had the pleasure of joining the reception for the Photography Galore show in Battle Ground, Washington in which three of my digital photos were displayed. I felt honored to be in the company of many well know photographers in the area, as well as a feature showing of the photography of the Battle Ground High School photography students. I wish it did not violate copywrite to show you photos of their work. It was amazing!!

My first tentative step into the art world was through my photography, hastily entered into a high school art show, oh so many years ago now. I had taken a few photos with a Graphlex press camera and 120 film and, on a whim, decided to see how they held up in a juried show. To my surprise, I received a blue ribbon and an honorable mention. Who could not be hooked on photography after that!?!

I love photography most, though, for preserving life memories of the people who have lived in my heart and the places I have traveled throughout the years. Without photography, the emotions are preserved in the soul, but the images can frequently become time worn and faded. Just a few moments looking through my photos never fails to put me in a better mood with the many memories they bring back.

The top photograph above my head is of a pair of shoes in a long abandoned house we found in Tennessee on a trip with my sister and neice where we traced the places our ancestors lived during the civil war era. The shoes were brittle and curled with age, but had once been a cherished possesion of someone who lived there. It's almost if you could reach through the glass and touch history.

The photo below that was of a mountain creek I crossed on a plank during my solo hike of Mt. Whitney in California, something I had never tried before. I worried about being alone on a weeklong car trip spanning four different states, but I never ran out of people to talk to or have meals with and the photos keep the fond memories safe of those I met along the way.

The last photo was also taken in the old abandoned house, of a tattered lace curtain strung across a bedroom window. There were seven layers of wallpaper on the wooden slat walls and the remains of an old spring mattress on the floor. The front of the home had collapsed, leaving the interior open to the elements, but the curtain still remained...still elegant as it moved gracefully in a light breeze.

For me a photograph will always be an open doorway to time travel...and an opportunity to revisit those moments that will live in our hearts forever.

Sun Warmed Soil and Song Filled Skies

I felt the sun before I saw it. Light drifting lazily through the slats of the blinds falling gently onto the duvet, tickling my eyelids with the warmth that only sunlight brings. Warmth that envelopes the soul and sings of better days coming. I hear the birds celebrating with song and know when I get to my garden, there will be new buds reaching towards the light. What a blessing that this, our first true day of sun, falls on my day off gifting me with the opportunity get my hands dirty . I filled the feeders and was soon rewarded with juncos, house finches, goldfinches, bushtits, and chickadees eating with abandon, squabbling for rights to eat, and building nests in the nearby cedar trees.

My lettuce garden has sprouted and in a few weeks, there will be no more need to buy salad greens at the market.

The weeds are out of the new herb garden and to my delight, it looks like 21 lavenders made it through this rainy year without getting their feet too wet. The only thing left to do is to mow, but I haven't yet enjoyed the newly grown grass, making it easiy to delay. As for the backyard, this may be the year I create my "natural" lawn, simply seeding wildflowers rather than pollute the air with engine exhaust.

The cherry tree is blossoming with abandon...

Everything is filled with buds and blossoms and color and shouting that spring has finally arrived.