My Galleries
Oil & Cold Wax Paintings
In Oil & Cold Wax Painting, the artist mixes a cold wax medium into oil paint. This creates a thickened body of paint to create a heavily textured surface. The thickened paint allows me to layer, scratch, add texture, and scrape back, to expose early layers in the “history” of my painting.
The medium itself, is composed mainly of beeswax with a small amount of solvent and other ingredients to aid in drying time. It has a soft, paste-like consistency at room temperature and dries hard, with a matte surface. Unlike the encaustic process, it requires no heat.
Oil Paintings
Oil Painting was my first true love. I enjoy the way it stays workable; I love the consistency of the paints; I love the way it smells when I enter my studio. Everything about it says “QUALITY” to me. A quality painting experience, and a quality finished product. There is no substitute for oils.
Acrylic Paintings
Acrylics, for me, are a difficult medium to work with. I began painting with oils at the age of 15, so naturally, that is my comfort medium. However – I have been known to do a quick, happy painting in acrylics just because of the ease of set-up and the quick drying time.
Encaustic Paintings
Encaustic painting is an ancient form of art using very hot wax. The “paint” is a mixture of beeswax, damar resin, and pigment. I paint while the wax is in a molten state, and fuse each layer to the layer below. I love the translucent layers that are unique to encaustics; they give the painting an ethereal, organic quality impossible to achieve with any other medium.
Encaustic Soul Houses
The HOUSE to me, is a vessel, much like the human soul. It contains the people who dwell within including all of their experiences; all of their dreams; and all of their memories. Some houses contain a family; some a single person; and some sit empty or abandoned…yet, FULL of all of the lives that ever dwelt within its walls. Thus the title, “Soul Houses”.
I begin with a 2” x 6” piece of pine lumber. After it is shaped and sanded, I prime it with encaustic gesso, and then begin to create. I start with a layer of encaustic medium, then fuse layer upon layer of waxy color and story elements into them. Each house is unique. Each will connect with only one person. He or she will know it when it pops up. The meaning may be obvious, or appear over time. The connection, however, is immediate. If you don’t find it here today, check back. There are more to come…
Collage
I have played with Collage, on and off, for 30 years. Ironically, it was only after my recent foray into mixed media, and art journaling, that I began to consider it a “serious” fine art medium. In my work, I use anything paper: my own monoprints, cocktail napkins, old newspapers, magazine photos, and even the pages of National Geographic after a liberal dousing with Citra Solv. Then I embellish with texture paste, acrylics and more. Collage allows me to tell a story. And I like when the viewer can see his or her own story in my work!
Works on Paper
The Paintings on Paper that I offer, are “exercises” that I do to warm up for a day of painting in my studio. These warm-ups are spontaneous and fast – unplanned. Truly from my soul. They are produced either with Oil & Cold Wax, or with Acrylics, on Arches Oil Paper, or 140# cold press water color paper. The larger works can be cut apart as individual paintings, or framed in their entirety. This is an economical way to enjoy original art work.
