Christmas Cards...

When I was a little girl my family got loads of Christmas cards. My mother always displayed them in the living room. We had venetian blinds and the cards would be slipped on them with the picture showing. We had windows across the front and side of the living room and by Christmas they were completely covered with beautiful cards from friends from all over.

This blog will include instructions on how to make your own Christmas cards.

I decided that I was going to "try" to make my Christmas cards this year, even though I really don't send out many cards. You know how you have so much energy at the beginning of the holidays and as the days tick off it slowly fades. I think too that because we are "artist" we think that we are expected to do a Christmas card. After New Years I usually have forgotten about my lack of making a card. Even in December I will tell myself, just make it a New Years Card, but after that I just put it out of my mind.

I started out trying to decide what I wanted on the card and settled on a manger scene. The first thing I did was get my little manger scene out with the Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus figures. I wanted the composition to be different so I placed them in various ways and photographed them. I had sat them on a damask pillow sham and in the picture you could see the swirls in the damask. I played with the picture in photoshop trying all different "artistic enhancements" until I got the photo the way I wanted it. Then I proceeded to paint it. The painting took various stages some I like and then some I didn't. I finally decided to photograph the painting and see if I could decide where to go with it. Well... that helped me a little. At this point though I had the photograph that I would use for the card.

PowerPoint is my program of choice for getting things lined up and holding them where they need to be, but you can use any program. Word works fine too you just have to set different margins but you can insert pictures very easily with it too. I inserted my photo of my painting and also some text and arranged it so that I could get one card out of a letter size piece of paper. I used a photograph paper because I liked the glossy richness of color that the final product produces. With this method all of the sides visible on the card are the good side of photo paper, it prints everything on one side.

As you can see from the photo of the layout piece, after printing it is ready to fold. I first fold the letter size piece in half so that the picture is folded to the correct height. Then you just fold it in half side ways to make your card. When folding I use a bone (I think that is what they call it) to produce very tightly folded edges. Then all you have to do is put it in an envelope that I bought a box of called Invitation envelopes they are 5-1/2 Baronial - 4-3/8" X 5-3/4".

So now you can all run right over to the computer and start making your cards.... they don't have to be Christmas cards. I like this method because it is so hard to get your painting printed on the blank greeting cards exactly right. You can do this with any paper that is a little bit heavy.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanakahua to you all.... Sally

I can't believe it....

Well... I really can't believe that it has been almost one month since I have written in my blog! Not that anyone has noticed but me. I have thought alot about it but it is like I said in a previous blog, you just have to start writing and it will happen. We will see...

The holidays bring lots of activities and I have been quite involved in them. My holiday dinner was Thanksgiving and everyone (18 of us) came up to the mountains for a wonderful day of food and family. Becky and all of her family came up and spent the day, along with Melisa's parents, Mike and Nancy. We really had a great time, everyone brought great food; with turkey, stuffings and dressings, ham, sweet potato souffle, garden vegetables, and only Katy can make pumpkin pies, just like my Mother's with real whipped cream.... so we ate and ate.

The "kids" had fun riding on the four wheelers and little motorcycle. Which at one time seemed huge when about 6 year old Michael got it (his feet didn't even touch the ground). So it was time for Alexandria to learn to ride it and Bailey had a little want to, but not quite a I'm going to. Alexandria did really good, started right out real steady; it was only later that she saw a tree and her Dad. All part of the learning curve but she mastered riding pretty quick. Michael has graduated to the four wheeler, even though he still zips around on the motorcycle when he has to share the four wheeler with someone else. He even took Nancy (Michael's Nana) on a ride around "Terrebonne" (our place) to show her all of the mountain activities and views. The kids were able to come the evening before Thanksgiving and didn't have to go home till the Sunday after. We had a really great family time. After the last of them left, Terry said, "that was a wonderful time"... it really was and I wanted to curl up and go to sleep. You really have to stay busy (as a mother) all of the cooking and cleaning, it really isn't noticed by anyone else but you. Really is worth it though! I can always nap later.

My sister will have Christmas and we will all go there for lunchtime dinner (hope that clarifies the time). I always think about my mother and talking about dinner and supper.... I think I can have dinner at lunch but supper is always in the evening? So Becky will have the "elegant" Christmas, she will have everything decorated to perfection and we will have another wonderful time.

I love Christmas. Trying to keep the commercialism out of it is very hard, but with the economy maybe it will make people realize what is really important. To think that it all started with that little babe in the manger, and the gift that we have all been given through that baby Jesus.

I hope that you all enjoy each day of this season of Christmas or Hanukkah, may you all be blessed with love, peace, and joy... Sally

A Day With My Sister

Today I decided to go and spend the day with my sister, Becky. As I mentioned before Becky is a Master Gardener (she is also a really good artists with different priorities). It is really something how as kids you can fight and squabble and then all of a sudden when you grow up everything can change. You find you want to be together, like best friends, but different.


I will give you a little tour of a "Gardener's Yard". First of all, I think that the light must just shine different on yards like this. They have beautiful vistas everywhere you look, even secret gardens that you have to look for. Do you see these iris blooming... I have never seen iris blooming at this time of year, but I think she said it was some variety that is brand new. That is another thing, all of these "brand new" things I think are only shared with these special "Master Gardener Groups" because they pamper and spoil their plants. With me it's prepare the soil?



She has flowers still blooming everywhere. I really believe some of them are mixed up because they are blooming and shouldn't be. There are some really unusual and strange plants too, the purple one, datura, is just fabulous looking and look at that gorgeous foxglove.

Becky's little grandson, Maddox, is really lucky. She has fixed a children's garden on the upper level of the yard, complete with pot man and gourd girl. There are gnomes and a flying pig, that Maddox calls a bug. When she turns the pig on and it's wings start flapping he just gets so excited. There is also normal stuff too like a sandbox.

Becky made gourd girl and pot man, she also did the big feet complete with glistening toenails in the foreground of the pot man picture.

She is making hypertufa pots, and troughs and all kinds of things out of concrete mixtures; like the feet that lead the way to the children's garden, leaves, planter pots, troughs, and mushrooms.

Well, I'm worn out from visiting her. She never rests; busy, busy, busy all of the time. As I look around my home and yard, I'm trying to decide what to do next... I'll just have to think about it for awhile. Sally...

My Gourds...

Well here they are my six neat gourds. I cut them off the vines the other day and left neat stems, a few leaves and tendrils. I can not wait till they get dried so that I can actually do something to them. Wonder how long that will take???

My sister came up to the mountains and gave me the news that I need to forget about these gourds for about six months. So I won't be able to use them until next year. As Ron Pircio would say Bummer!

I can use them right now though for my still life paintings.

You can look back on my older blogs and see them hanging on the fence.

Sally...

Making Concrete Leaves...

When my artists friends, Southern Colours, came up to my mountain house we made concrete leaves. It was alot of fun and they really turned out pretty. I'm going to give you step by step directions in case you might want to make them.

I am hoping that mine come out okay, since it is right around freezing. I did them this morning after the sun came out good, but I can't move them into the basement, so they are under the porch. I covered them good so I will keep my fingers crossed that they turn out.

The materials that you need are: Quikrete Vinyl Concrete Patcher, leaves, water, small pale, stir stick, and a wheel barrel or something to hold sand or a sand pile.

The first thing that you do is lay out your leaves and depending on the size of the leaf, you make a mound to lay the leaf over. Place the leaf on the sand mound FACE DOWN and then you will mound the concrete on top of the leaf. You mix the concrete vinyl patcher with water to a consistency of a stiff batter. I've included a picture of the mixed concrete. My sister told me how to do this and they have tried all different methods of making these leaves. The vinyl patcher is strong and doesn't need any additives.

The leaf needs to have a sand border around it to keep the concrete on the leaf. If it does come down and touches the sand it make a pretty sand edge on the leaf. Personally I like the sandy edge on the leaf but you can put plastic down over the sand, then the leaf and concrete. It works best if you mound the concrete up in the middle of the leaf and start patting it down to the edges. You have to keep patting and the water in the concrete comes to the surface. This is good and it is getting rid of the little air bubbles that form against the leaf. You want the concrete patted smooth against the leaf, at least 1/2 inch thick. The thickness depends a little on what you plan to do with your leaf. Small leaves don't have to be very thick, but the larger leaves need to be thick enough to keep them from breaking, probably an inch and more in the middle back. I've also read where you can reinforce the leaf by putting some metal wire within the concrete (be sure to cover the wire good). I also read that you can make a wire hanger and put it on the back to hang the leaf if you want to. After you get the leaf covered you can press another leaf onto the top of it and have an impression on both sides. The top impression is not as dramatic as the bottom one.

After you have done this you need to wait.... 24 hours is good, but the next day look at it and test the edge to see if it moves easily. Carefully lift it up and turn it over. Sometimes it might take longer for it to dry and small leaves might not take that long.
In this picture you can see how the leaf made an impression in the sand mound and I turned the leaf over and removed the natural leaf. Turned out pretty.

Now this is what not to do... you remember that I said to wait 24 hours or more for large leaves? Well this is what happens when the leaf has not dried enough. Ugh!!! I just barely snapped the first picture took the camera down and there it was breaking. The leaf was just on uneven sand but it just wasn't dry enough. Possibly if I had cushioned it better after I turned it over it might not have cracked.... but it isn't worth it. Just wait till you can look at the concrete and see the dryness in it as opposed to the dark gray of the wet concrete.

My experimental dish type piece using the ground pine pressed in isn't completely dry either. I am being extremely careful of it now that I know what can happen. The concrete platter is what I wanted to turn out. After it dries I can brush sand out of it and seal it, using it inside or out. I'm afraid to do too much to it yet. You can see the edges are a light gray but the center is still the darker (wet looking) gray. The picture doesn't show the ground pine impression very well, it will be pretty once it's dried and I can clean it up.

Have fun and be patient, not impatient like me.... Sally

Fall in the North Georgia Mountains...

Welcome to my place in North Georgia. This is the road in front of my home and it is alive with fall colors. I love painting this view, especially in the spring, but now I'm thinking that fall might just be the prettiest. I decided today that I need to walk around again and take pictures before fall disappeared. I guess you might call this "the peak", supposedly the very best time to experience the fall colors. Many of you might not be able to see the North Georgia Fall, so I will send you pictures of fall at my home.

I love fall, mainly because I enjoy the changing seasons. Born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida there was not fall, at least I don't remember it as a little girl. The colors of fall are so pretty and I guess the warm hues of reds and golds complement the cool in the air, making it spectacular. In this picture the beautiful clear cool blue sky really sets off the reds and oranges in the maple leaves.

This was an oak tree still bright with its gold leaves. I also like the slivery bark of the tree here with the light bouncing off of it. Hopefully I will have some paintings in here somewhere.

Here the persimmons are still hanging on. If I could get up to them I might try to make some persimmon jam. I've heard that after they have had frost on them they turn sweet instead of being really tart. Mrs. Weaver makes persimmon jam out of them. They are up very high though and as soon as they land on the ground, the deer and raccoons make them disappear.

We have sumac sprinked around the property and I caught this in the light right in front of the house. The light was hitting it perfectly to make it stand out against the stone background of the house.

The fall is quickly slipping away, with the leaves dropping as the wind blows. Here you can see it's still beautiful from my studio windows. It is really neat to be able to paint from my picture windows if I want to stay inside. Who can stay in though when it's this pretty outside.

Have a great Halloween!

Sally....

The Southern Colours Art Retreat...

Finally the day was there for us to begin our "Artist Retreat" in the mountains. It is sort of like over the river and through the woods, and a few of them got slightly lost when they just couldn't believe that you went through a rusty red gate across a pasture (with no visible tire marks) and up a hill that looked like it went no where. Poor Tracie went on out the road till she thought she better turn around, then going up to a house with a driveway that she was afraid her little Mercedes couldn't make it up. So then she climbed the hill up to the house, where she met my inlaws that told her she was almost there. I know she was nearly dead after climbing that hill that's almost a mountain. In spite of it all everyone eventually found there way to 28 Bucktown Trail.

On Thursday after we got there we walked around and showed everyone the various places that we thought they might like to paint. Only part of the people were there on Thursday, the rest coming up on Friday. So after we walked around and decided where we wanted to paint, I took them with their painting easels and supplies on the four-wheeler so they would have more time painting before the weather changed. Just after I got everyone settled, Tracy said it's raining, and to pastelists that is a real problem. I went and got Sallie, who was down by the big pond; and no sooner had I gotten her than the rain stopped. She set up in the open garage to finish her painting, while I went to check on Donna and Cyndi that wanted to keep on painting.


I had promised we were going to do a "surprise" so Sallie and I began to prepare for it. We were going to make concrete leaves. We had gotten the sand put in the wheel barrel and the concrete mix ready so when they were through painting they could each make their leaf. The leaves after they were made had to sit 24 hours to set good before they should be ready to move. We had alot of fun making the leaves. Sallie had brought angel trumpet leaves and a napa cabbage and I had bought some ornamental cabbage to get leaves off of too. It was a very successful venture and everyone took home really beautiful concrete leaves that looked like they had been dusted with fall. Sallie had brought mineral pigments from a painting trip to France for us to use on our leaves. So when we were making them we dusted the leaf with the burgundy and ochre pigments. They looked like fall when the green leaf was pealed off to reveal the leaf detail in the concrete.

As usual they brought tons of good food, from chili on the first cool night to bagels and lox for Saturday brunch, and everything good in between. It was all delicious! Best of all was that they did all the work and I just enjoyed being with all of them.

On Friday the drizzle was becoming more intense, but that didn't stop us, after all we are artists. We were painting everywhere from the open garage, screened porch, patio under the screen porch, front porch and Cyndi had even set up in the upstairs bedroom window. All of the spots had various fall vistas. Then the rest of them had been gathering up my things to set up a table full of various still lifes to paint in the studio. We all were painting as fast as we could.

Friday night I did an encaustic demo for them. This let them see why I am so in love with the encaustics. As usual I probably should have stopped before I did, but I just love layering that wax. I also tried to show them different applications using the different tools.

The one thing that didn't cooperate was the moon. The clouds and fog set in and didn't allow us to paint either of the evenings. We still had plenty to do. We took time to visit and tell a few stories. You know when Diana comes that she has all sorts of activities planned for entertainment. We were really to tired by then to need much entertainment. Like with the painting everywhere, we were also sleeping everywhere.

I am going to put on the Southern Colours website about our trip and the others are sending me pictures since I didn't take any. Use this link to read and see more... http://www.southerncoloursactivities.blogspot.com/

We all had a great time but I have to catch up on my sleep now. Sally...

Fall and Southern Colours

Well it has been along time since I've written but I have really been busy with a bunch of different things. It's Fall and the trees are starting to change. The picture was taken at our home in the mountains last Wednesday evening after it had rained and rained. The sky was absolutely beautiful, pink clouds with purple, blue and yellow swirling around in the sky. The red and yellows in the trees were reflecting the sky and it just had a really warm glow.

My Southern Colours Art group are coming up this next week to paint. Becoming an annual field trip for us to recreate the beautiful fall colors on paper and canvas. We have alot of fun just immersing ourselves in ART! Nothing stops us, if it rains we can do still lifes inside, and when it's sunny, plein air of the "country scenes". Last year we painted harvest moon paintings at night in the cold and had so much fun producing some really neat paintings. This year we are going to do nocturnal paintings. Starting even earlier in the evening, not waiting for the moon to come up, I want to catch that twilight glow. It only lasts for a little while, hope I can paint fast enough! The moonlight will be there too because it will be close to the full moon. Sallie Atkins read online that Marc Hanson uses little booklights with full spectrum bulbs to do his nocturnal paintings by. Well .... we are ready, have the lights, paints and want to.

I've been busy trying to get everything ready for my artists friends. They are all great about arranging and bringing the food, we always have so much. It's really fun, for just a little bit, to just relax and think about painting. Then to see what you can accomplish in a short time is surprising. Do you have to be an artist to understand that? Sally...

One more thing about pets...

The last time we went off for vacation, Linda Dragonette rode up to the mountains with me to drop Toby off at Terry's folks. They usually keep him when we go off. She said as we left he (Toby) looked at her like "don't leave me with the old people" as he was crying to go with us. Pat says he cries for an hour or so then he gets okay.

Well we are going to Terry's high school reunion and will be gone a few days so we left him again. As we were driving off today this was the sight I had.

What do you think he's thinking? Sally...

Pets...

Can any one ever resist a new puppy? I would like to introduce you to Toby our precious little white labrador retriever. We couldn't take him home yet, just picking him out of the litter. You know that "first pick" is always the best. The little collar that we put on him then, let the people that had the puppies, know that he was ours.

I really didn't want another dog since we had had "Jacob" for about 15 years, a chocolate lab that was like part of the family. I wanted to try life without a dog for awhile because you have to always be thinking of them when you go off or come home late, etc. Terry still wanted a dog and Todd, our youngest son, had just happened to find the lab puppies. Terry had a dream that we got a white lab puppy and named "him" Toby. Look what appeared right away. I think that I was set up. He was cute but I probably would have picked one of the girl puppies if I had to pick one.....they were all cute. Needless to say, I went along with the crowd and we got a new puppy.

We promptly made ALL of the mistakes. First of all I could not crate him. If you are going to have a dog, they need to be able to run around inside and out. Second, I just helped him a little and he managed to get up on the bed and lay down with us one morning. Sort of cute when he is 5 pounds but now he is 90 pounds.

We believe that he was just about the most destructive dog on earth, getting from a puppy to a 2 1/2 year old dog. His favorite was pillow foam... I would come home from work to find the living room had experienced a snow storm from the couch pillows. What is so bad is that I would bring the downstairs couch pillows up if we had company (so you could sit on the couch) and forget to take them back down. I learned very quickly to not do that again. He tore one of the downstairs pillows once and made it a center cushion instead of a left side cushion. One morning while Terry was in the shower, I went to make coffee and when I came back, he was proudly bringing my eyeglasses to me ... forget that they were new and one side was crunched. Clickers ... we went through them like crazy, he really loved to chew them until the batteries fell out.

One of the funniest things that happened was when Nedra came and picked me up to go to somewhere, when I got home there was a message on my recorder from my next door neighbor. They wanted me to call them as soon as I got the message. Apparently Toby had gotten my keys that have a clicker on them to open the car and it has a panic alarm on it. Well Toby was chewing or biting it and the panic alarm was going on and off. They had tried to get me to come to the door but I didn't come and they were afraid I was trying to signal for help. It was only Toby! There are probably too many things Toby did to go through, but he would always be at the backdoor when I would come home from work with that I didn't mean to do it look.

If you and the dog can manage to live through the "puppy stage" and we did manage, you will come out with the best dog in the world. Toby has become our best friend and a part of the family. He is one of the most loving dogs we have ever had, but then, he gets away with more than any dog we have ever had. He demanded that we care about him even when he was bad, and he knew when he was bad.

The picture above was the day I went to the Sunflower Farm in Rutledge, GA with Southern Colours. I was making pictures of the sunflowers for potential paintings and I caught him checking out the sunflowers.

If you are thinking about a pet, don't hesitate. Maybe get a little bitty one, but we love Toby and he loves us. It really adds alot to your life, you'll be surprised. Sally...

Early Morning and the First Light

I have been reading my friends blogs and they seem to be written with ease. I love Sallie and Ron's old pictures, with Sallie's wonderful stories of long ago and Ron's humor, then there are Margaret's paintings.... What should I do next?

I prepared my "Art Blog" so that I could write whatever I want here so that my art work site stayed "professional looking". Now when I can write whatever I want I can't decide what to write; is this writers block. Sort of like a painter with a white piece of paper? I know that when I have that white piece of paper I just have to get something on it and then it just starts, sort of magical. Like dance or even music you have to get the flow started and then if you're lucky it just begins to flow out in streams of words, or color, steps, notes, to create ART! What would we do without it. Have you ever thought of life without art? Everyones' artistic nuances help to make our lives more interesting. Art is everywhere.

As artist, we strive to develop an artistic eye. I think we all have it, we just need to realize the beauty in everything around us. It's there! Simple things can be beautiful. I'm lucky because right now I can go outside and look at the sky and see the beautiful cool atmosphere.

Thinking about it I decided I need to get up and take a field trip. Here is what has attracted my attention this early morning.

The moon flower was the first thing that caught my eye and nose this morning. This flower is gorgeous, looks like a morning glory on steroids.

I think the bud is my favorite picture that I made, but the picture just doesn't do it justice. The air is so cool this morning and that first light spilling over the trees and across the field all the way over to the bud. The light exposing the ribs of the petals still folded up and waiting for the evening to unfold and saturate the air with fragrance. It is just beautiful.

I want to paint today I'll have to make those first marks on the substrate to see what wants to appear. Some additional pictures from this early morning walk for you to see.

Future art projects are in the gourds. I have seen some absolutely gorgeous gourd art! Diana Dice has loaned me some art books on gourds to hopefully handle mine properly so they can become beautiful art. I love the shapes in this picture of the gourds against the sky.
The first color of fall is starting to show up in the trees, not very much but I spotted it here.

This is our little pond and I have a sprinkling of flowers here and there. The lantana has been really pretty this year. Can you just see the cool misty air around the lantana....

Well my paper isn't blank any more. Have a great day today and my hasn't God Blessed Us with his beautiful handiwork! ...Sally

My Week in the Mountains

I re-posted the picture because the color wasn't accurate at all. Took the picture outside in shade so I hope light is right now. Sallie Atkins says to take the picture in the N/S/E/W positions and pick the most accurate one. You can look at the difference in the one below that was made in my studio around midnight. I also have a real problem in that I painted one of my studio walls red so I get reflections from it. Thank goodness the rest of the walls are a very neutral green hue.

Roses in Pot - Encaustic is what I have done this week in the mountains and I had to put every thing encaustic away to stop. I really don't know when to stop even though I try to stop. I'll look at the painting and think I just need to do this or that and keep messing with it.

The photograph of the painting with the texture isn't photographing very well. When I started this painting I decided I would take pictures of it as I went through various stages. The second painting is in the beginning stages and I really liked it too. Should I have stopped there? You never know what will develop. I really like the painting now and I can't work on it anymore because everything is put up.

I did try to plan a little bit better this time. I had a picture and the fake roses to look at. This painting I used the slotted brush on and it really creates a lot of texture. I still fused between my layers, but then I also in the end brushed on the extra damar medium. The extra damar medium fills in the texture but yet keeps it too by dropping down into the valleys. When it is fused it is clear but as you can see it has a glare when I try to photograph it.

I really love the texture that you can get with the encaustics. This piece probably has more than the pieces that I've done so far. The piece is the largest encaustic I've done to date,
24" X 24".

Well I didn't get too much done this week, but I have painted! When we got here on Sunday evening we had a little excitement. We always bring in our things, cooler, etc. and Terry said there's a snake! He wanted me to go and get the pellet gun so I took off after it. When I got back I hadn't gotten the pellets, so back I went after them. I was afraid the snake was going to bite Toby who was on the outside with Terry and I in the studio and the snake between us. So with Terry yelling at Toby to stay, then me coming out and yelling too; Toby just jumped over the snake and came to me. In the meantime the snake came in too and went over by the bookcases. Terry was afraid the snake would get under the bookcases and then we'd have a problem. So luckily we had a fish net with a long handle to catch the snake with. Terry managed it pretty easily with the net and took the snake outside and took care of it. The snake was a copperhead and for a copperhead it was a fair size about 2 inches in diameter. Sure would have hurt if it had bit one of us! Now we are looking everywhere as we are carrying on with things outside. The price one pays for living in the country!

Tomorrow I have to clean before we go home.... ugh! Sally...

It's there.... and then it's gone!

I have been painting tonight...

I started out painting my raku pot and had put some pods in it for a still life. There was something bothering me so I usually will get my camera out, take a picture and that helps me to "see" what the painting actually looks like. I can distance myself from it and see better what it needs. So I got the heat gun out to work on the top area of the vase where the pods were. They got a little too fluid and the next thing I knew... I wind up with the painting on the left.

I probably could have gone back and scraped off the wax and redone it. I decided since I had messed it up I'd just get crazy because I couldn't hurt it at this point. So I tried some new things to create texture using the netting that is on bags of onions. I really liked the texture effect that I got from brushing the wax over the net and then lifting it off.

To me the painting is of some bouys that I saw by the docks in Kodiak, Alaska. You know how when oil gets in the water and it just kind of swirls around with reflections and dark water. I was just having fun creating all of the texture in the hot wax. I showed it to Terry and he thought it looked like beehives; so I guess it can be whatever you want it to be.

I really need to start planning a little better with thumbnail sketches, etc. I just get in a hurry and I always know that if I take that little bit of extra time it will save me in the long run. I'm just doing what I want... and it doesn't always come out.

More Encaustics

Well here are my newest "Little Bouquet - Encaustic" and a revised "Blackstock's Vines - Encaustic". You can look back to the previous blog and see how much it changed, hopefully for the better. I finally got cranked up... or heated up and at 4:10 am decided that I had to stop and go to bed. I discovered that heat guns get extremely hot and you shouldn't get them near your skin. That helped me to realize that I needed to go to bed.

You will see how much Blackstock's Vines changed. I think I'm through for now on it. The photographing of the encaustics is very difficult and I'm still not sure the best way to do it. All of the glare is hard to overcome and see it like it really is.

The Little Bouquet is only 5.5" x 5" so I had to be very careful doing it since it was so small. I did it on a little leftover piece of maple so it can sit on a little easel on a table or shelf.

The wonderful thing about being an artist, you forget everything and just get in that "Art Zone" and time flies when you're having fun! The more encaustics I do the more I think this might be challenging my pastels. Sally...