MISSA : waxing encaustic

I've just come home from spending 5 days at the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts where I took an encaustic wax course with instructor Carol Rae.  What an experience!  Thirteen artists in a room with propane torches, hot molten wax and a pyromaniac's drive to light laquer doused paintings on fire.

Naturally I am a neat freak, but I had to give it all up for this course, which was fast paced and messy.

Here are a few of my first attempts at painting with hot wax.

This is my first one.

 This one is painted on a NASA pocelain tile.

 This one's my favorite.

 Not stepping out of my comfort zone at all, but I still quite like it.  It really glows in person and has lovely depth.

On the last day my kids came and lit stuff on fire too.  They had a blast.  I was too busy supervising to take pics.  Here are a couple of pieces I did that morning to surprise them and welcome them to class.

 And of course there were alot of pieces that I really didn't like at all.

This is upside down but it hardly matters, it sucks both ways!

And now I'm hooked.  The kids and I have created our own encaustic workshop in our home.  Here is a japanese style wave I'm working on at home, but it has a long way to go before I'll be happy with it.

So there you have it.  A peek inside my first ever art school class.