Waxy Workshops, Cold or Hot, at Art and Soul Minneapolis

I have about four spots left open in my wax workshops at Art and Soul Retreat in Minneapolis. Whether you like your wax hot (encaustic), or cold (oil and cold wax medium) you can have a great time experimenting week after next at Art and Soul. 

Here's the description for my cold wax class, 

Luminous Landscape with Oil and Cold Wax

Discover the translucent beauty of painting with oil and cold wax medium! You’ll experiment with free and bold abstract landscapes with this delicious medium and Arches oil paper. You can paint right onto the paper, so no need to gesso. Unlike with hot wax, you need no appliances to achieve maximum cold wax goodness. You can add and scrape off layers as you want to, so no need to be concerned about mistakes!

You’ll work on several pieces at once, using tools such as squeegees, bamboo skewers, rubber jar openers, combs, and more. In addition to painting, we’ll explore incising, using paint sticks, painting knives, oil pastels, and adding collage elements. Join me in exploring this unusual and interactive medium. You’ll leave with several gorgeous pieces!

For those of you who want to learn encaustic skills or add to what you already have, I'll be teaching "Express Yourself in Encaustic".

Encaustic is an ancient art that is enjoying a tremendous renaissance in our time. Encaustic pieces have a luminous glow found in no other medium. Encaustic layers are "dry" almost instantly and yet they can be reworked at any time in the future. Encaustic works wonderfully with a variety of mixed media elements and techniques. This is a perfect class for those new to encaustic. You'll learn to make encaustic medium and encaustic paint, use collage and photo transfer with encaustic, add 3-D embellishments, and more. You'll have fun experimenting with the many fascinating effects that you can achieve by creating with encaustic. If you have used encaustic before but would like a refresher or new inspiration, you'll find it in this class. You can add and scrape off layers as you go, so no need to be concerned about "mistakes". Come express yourself freely and boldly with encaustic!

"Tear It Up!" class grows wild and wonderful flower collages

This year at Art and Soul Retreat I brought back the first class I ever taught at this retreat--in 2009. Students created flower collages with torn and cut paper. I advised that the flowers need not resemble any found in nature! We had great day and the flowers got wilder as the day progressed.

Delicious papers from Art and Soul Retreat

We had so much fun last week at Art and Soul! Here are some of the decorated papers created by my students in "Papers Wabi-Sabi". Some of these are closeups while others are detail shots of the papers. (I didn't suceed in getting good photos of all the papers--some are too blurry to be saved even by "unsharp mask".)

Students used acrylic paint, re-inkers, alcohol inks, collage techniques, stamping, stencils, and more to make these unique papers.

Liz Kettle taught an evening class where students could take their papers and create gorgous tote bags from them!

It's Almost Here!

Classes are filling up at Art and Soul Retreat! Here' are two sample collage I just made for my "Transferred Secrets" class. (Four spots left!)

My cold wax and oil class, "Baby, It's Cold" is closed. Keep checking in case anyone cancels.

Two samples I made for "Tear it Up!". One more formal and one abstract.

Two spots open in "Visual Haiku! A couple of new samples:

I'm also teaching "Papers Wabi-Sabi" Make gorgous papers in this class and then take Liz Kettle's class to make a fabulous tote bag with your papers. Only four spots left in Liz' class!

Check the Art and Soul Retreat Website for larger images of Liz' bags and additional images of my classes. Hope to see you there!

Transformations in Oil and Cold Wax

Kudos to my talented and adventurous students who took my oil and cold wax class over the past two Saturdays! The first session of the class involved starting many pieces and learning techniques like scraping, incising, using a squeegee and many weird utensils to produce texture. We used birch boards and two kinds of paper for the pieces. Each student also put a textured layer of Venetian Plaster on a cradled board so they could paint over it at the second session. Finally, they learned how to add collage in the form of images on tracing paper for added interest.

Using a palette knife to add a new layer of paint and cold wax

Using a pottery scraper to reveal previous layers

The invaluable squeegee

During the first session, students had to work on trusting that their pieces would turn out to be paintings. Oil and wax pieces undergo many changes and at first they may not look so great! By the end of the two sessions, the work was looking wonderful. I managed to get photos of most of the finished work and there are many more pieces waiting for more oil and wax.

This student let me guide her toward eloquent simplicity in her work. Here's a piece on plaster with a touch of collage.

This student explored rich colors with subtle pattern and movement. The incising is a perfect accent.

Here she lets earlier layers come through.

Rich color appeared in many of this student's pieces. Again, you can see a touch of collage here.

In earlier stages

The finished piece

                       

This student created dreamy imaginary landscapes. Stillness and movement combine in this piece.

An abstract landscape-again a perfect blend of stillness and movement

A student incises into her layers with a bamboo skewer. The edges of the paper are taped.

Here's what the piece looks like when the tape is removed. The border sets off the pieces on paper beautifully. We had a lot of fun at the end of the second day when one student peeled the tape off her paper piece. It made such a difference! Others were going to wait, but we ended with a frenzy of tape-removing.

The first reveal!

Here are some more reveals:

I'll be teaching a one day oil and cold wax class at Art and Soul Retreat here in Portland, OR on March 6. Only two spots left! People are loving this medium!