The First Day of Encaustic

I hardly slept a wink last night. My brain was racing.

Dinner last night was fabulous and I enjoyed chatting with the cooks.

Today we all hit the ground running. I've only ever seen encaustics, but have never done it before, so I was not sure how to plan out what I hope to create. R&F, a great encaustics supply company provided us with 9 panels and luscious encaustic paints. Today we taped the edges of the panels, prepped the surfaces with gesso.

We learned how to make the base medium, worked with some of our images in Photoshop, printed those images, learned how to glue them down, trim then and then we began applying the wax and resin medium.

That was the most exciting part, and the most scary, too. I learned how to light and use a torch to begin the encaustic process. It is all very exciting.

One of the staff member had a small showing in the booth gallery in the dorm to highlight his ceramic teapots. There was beer, wine, snacks and music.

We took meal breaks and some of us ate together. I am loving the sense of community and inclusion in the workshop. Tonight we had roast chicken with a fruit studded rice, steamed cauliflower, salad and a chocolate beet cake topped with whipped cream.

I want to make the best of my time here, so I went back to the studio once I was done with dinner so that I could get better prepared for tomorrow. I was able to get three images adhered and one waxed with the base medium.

Last time I was here, I did individual portraits of each of us in the family. The had photos, texts, textures, etc. I am hoping to do another series of portraits this time. I was thinking that they might have some of the same elements, but after looking at Mia's (our instructor) samples perhaps I need to simplify my base images to leave space for what encaustic offers.

Here are her samples from today, all created by Mia:

My hope is that I will have something to share tomorrow.