Valley of Indecision

Sorry I've been MIA for a few days. Life got in the way.

But I've been in the studio working a bit. And here's a new diptych that I'm calling "Masquerade." It's encaustic with roots and beads on two panels - each panel 16"x16"x1.5". These are panels that I made myself. I think I should reshoot the photo because the panels look distorted. They really are square - honest!

My friend Sue told me that I should try for more color subtlety but that's a lost cause. These colors are subtle enough for me although I did have trouble with them because of the warm palette. I'm much more comfortable with cool colors.

So here's my problem: I made another diptych in orange, etc. that I really wasn't happy with. It's probably too much information, but here are three versions:

Version 1 - encaustic with roots, toothpicks and leaves. I didn't really think that the two panels had enough connection except for the color, so I made...

Version 2 - in which I turned the first panel on its side and extended the lines. But I thought this made it look too much like balloons or boobs, so then I...

Version 3 - turned the panels around. But then I thought it was kind of boring and not really like my work.

So, reader, I scraped.

That's the wonderful thing about encaustic - just heat it up and scrape away. All your indecisions, bad decisions, and misdirections just end up in balls of wax and you start over with nice, clean panels.

My Bowl of Balls in the display window at my last show.

I'll let you know how things turn out with Version 4.

Selected Paintings/New Paintings

Maybe I should just resign myself to thinking of the Selected Paintings as always being new ones. Of course the new ones are always the ones I'm most excited about. So here we go.

New Blue Diptychs - a Different Direction

Last week I made three new diptychs. I received the new free Manganese Blue color from R&F Paint (offer no longer available) and decided to use it along with my usual pallette of blues to make some new pieces on the 16"x16" Rodney Thompson panels I still had. I'm getting ready for my show with Lynette Haggard at ArtSpace and wanted to make some smaller work.


Limiting my color to a particular small range is unusual for me, but a practice I think it is helpful to try - at least every once in a while.

Thinking Sideways, encaustic and mixed media, 2009, each panel 16" x 16" x 1.5"

Using just the blues (plus a couple of greens, greys and black and white)*, I found myself making very loose, boundaryless marks - not like my usual work. I did incorporate some dried tubers** and things that I had in the studio that gave some form and focus to the pieces.

Exploring the Deep, encaustic and mixed media, 2009, each panel 16" x 16" x 1.5"

This work seemed to lend itself to the diptych format, but I thought that the two halves needed to have a significant difference between them. Filling sections of one half of each diptych with repetitive small forms brought in a geometric element but didn't create the boundaries between areas that I usually make. It allowed me to stay loose but still include some gridded areas. I am really pleased with this work and I can see a series in it.

Outreach, encaustic and mixed media, 2009, each panel 16" x 16" x 1.5"


*I should say that these are the colors on top. Underneath I have a lot more color - mostly warm to hot.

**I'm not going into a lot of detail about this because I think it's only important to my process and it's better if people (viewers) don't get distracted by focusing on this stuff.