Paintings in a Day

Well two paintings in a day. Even though it's amazing outside, I really wanted to work in the studio. So I did! I created both of these paintings today. Felt good to just crank something out. Just creating for the sake of creating. They are not perfect but met the needs I had today.

Scholastic is over - back to being an artist

I've managed to find a little more time now that Scholastic is over to create some art. Good thing, I need to have three pieces ready by Feb 1st to enter into the LO Festival of the Arts juried show. This years special exhibit will be encaustic art. Very exciting. So, I have two pieces I know I'm going to enter and I really want to finish this one. I work on it a bit this weekend and like the direction it's going, just need to work out a few kinks. Really enjoying the positive/negative play with the wax. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Weekend with Art Teachers

What a great weekend. I went to Redmond, Oregon for the state art educators conference. I made four presentations, showing off our amazing blogspots, our website and talking about Scholastic. At the end of the day I finally got to make some art. I went to a nifty workshop about beeswax, a subject near and dear to my heart. Instead of making a painting I made this creepy fetus beeswax necklace. I wore it all night in Redmond at a local pub and boy were those cowboys confused. Fun!! On Saturday I attended an all day watercolor class, Karen you would have loved it! Anyway what I made turned out pretty cool, I love the complimentary color scheme and the line quality. I'm looking forward to seeing you on Monday.

Ms. McB

Local 14

Well it's been a log time since I have been nervous about anything and I was nervous about participating in this show. Seven of my BFF's came out on Thursday to support me and see the rest of the work. The show really is wonderful, female artist rock! I'm happy with how my work is showing and proud of what I was able to accomplish. There is a show coming up I would like to encourage you all to participate in, it's the Beaverton Visual Arts Showcase. When the deadline comes up I'll let you know about it. I think we have a ton of work that would be amazing in this show. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Here are some pictures of the Local 14 show.

It's like Chicken heaven!

I'm frantically getting ready for the Local 14 show and I feel like I'm in chicken heaven. I'm surrounded by chickens both real and encaustic. I hope that some of you can come to the show. Here are a few of the newbies. The one of Wilma is done now. Just don't have a new picture yet. She's my favorite chicken.

Double Whamee

Two shows in less than a week. Great week for Ms. McBride. I was accepted as a guest artist for the Local 14 show in October, www.local14.org And I just found out that my work will also be in the juried show for the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. Wahoo!

I better get into the studio and start working!

Who Inspires Me?

Lately I have been drawn to local artist Andrea Benson. I met Andrea at an IEA meeting. IEA is a group of encaustic artists who get together monthly to talk about hot wax! Andreas work is feminine, yet strong. She uses papers that she makes to create patterns in her figures. Her work is figurative, which I tend to be drawn to because I feel like it's not something I do well. I would like to do it well but struggle. Andrea has a thing about hands. They are so expressive. Perhaps the way to tackle the figure is to pick a part of the figure that I want to focus on, like Andrea's hands. I appreciate the simplicity of her work. I've found that with encaustic if you overwork the media it tends to be not as cooperative.

Two weekends from now I will be attending a workshop on encaustic painting taught by Portland artist Elise Wagner. Very exciting. http://www.elisewagner.com/ She is represented by Butters Gallery and I had the privledge of seeing her show recently. Elise has recently been working out her facination with how science and art collide. The atmosphere she creates in her work is fantastic, some of these are massive. I really want to know how to paint big with encaustic. I feel confined by the 12" x 12" substrates. Although you can't see it here many of her works are almost glowing. She has found a way to honor the luminosity of encaustic and still 'paint.' She has or seems to have complete control over the media. How does she create those loopy lines? They look encised and filled, then scraped. What a long process! I would love to get in her head and find out what she knows about encaustic. Tricks of the trade.

First attempts with Encaustic and new idea

Here are my 'VERY in process' starts to working the new idea in encaustic.

Thoughts? I'm finding that if I don't get it right the first time, going back and working the lines is not fun. I'm going to continue to experiment.

How do you process?

I have been thinking about the way I approach my work lately. I sketch but in various books or whatever paper product happens to be around. I'm facinated with where ideas come from. My neice Alecia drew a picture for me that started a three month facination with lines and organic shapes.

I love how Alecia's shapes are all interconnected and funky. I also enjoy that the circles are not circles at all but squarish shapes.

Here are some of the images that I have drawn in response to Alecias drawing. I would love to be able to work these out with encaustic but I'm not sure that's possible. Trying would be a good start!

Three Shows in February

I'm super excited because my work is going to be in three shows in February. The first show is the Beaverton Visual Arts Showcase, it's a juried show. They chose my crow. I'm also going to be in a show called Mentors and Artists Who Teach, it's at George Fox University. The last show is Beyond the Demos which will be at the West Linn Library. After putting on the Scholastic show it's going to be fun to show my own work. Here are some photo's of my recent work, done during this crazy snow storm. I've got two more in the works.

Trying to solve the problem

Well I was pretty happy to have finished all three pieces considering all that was going on in my life. Yeah, yeah Ms. McBride we are all busy. I know. I'm still frustrated with the puddling on the black and white chicken. When I put the paper down the surface below was not even and I think that's what did it. I've asked for some advise from other encaustic artist that I know. I took some lame pictures of the work in my kitchen. You can see the puddling in the one that's more close up.

I'm not sure what I want to do for my next chicken painting. The compositions usually come to me in a vision or dream. Nothing yet....

Looking Ahead

There hasn't been a day that I haven't thought about getting into the studio but life keeps getting in the way!  This weekend I'm going to the beach, which is good, but I won't be in the studio.  So, I'm going to have to find some time here and there after school.  I'm thinking I might need to set up a little encaustic station for myself at school.  The reality that I could actually get anything done at school however is slim.  I have two pieces done, just need to finish one more.  Yikes.  

I'm going to try

I have always wanted to complete a concentration along with the AP class. I'm feeling like this is a good year to try. Of course I say that now, before Thanksgiving, Christmas, organizing the entire Scholastic Art Awards program, bookclub, IEA, OAEA, parenting, blah, blah. I'm going to give it a whirl.

This weekend I started to paint, after lots of sketching, thinking and taking pictures of the girls. Who are the girls? My chickens! I want to complete a series of chicken portraits. Originally, I was thinking chicken mug shots and I don't want to abandon that idea, I just got excited about the colors and texture. Working in encaustic I would like to continue to explore the media and all that it has to offer. The idea with the chickens is two fold, to capture their personality using texture, line and color. And at the same time to find a way to super impose my various personality traits into the chicken portraits. I'm still working out the kinks.

Here is the first one, in process. This is Wilma, the lowest chicken on the totem pole, or should I say pecking order. She very often is not included with the rest of the group. Wilma is very sweet, shy and tries hard to please. At first she looked really mean, I didn't have the eye right. I think she looks lots better today. So far, I'm pleased with the overall look. This picture doesn't give the color justice.

Oh, the picture I'm using for my profile is Wilma. We have the same hair color!