Wild Arts Festival, Portland, November 17-18, 2018

This is the final year for the 6x6 Artist Open at the Wild Arts Festival. I made two works of art this year using watercolor, collage and topped by encaustic.

Harry Heron - before the encaustic top layer

Harry after the encaustic layer - photo enhanced.

A side view of the 1.5 inch cradled panel. A better depiction of the final colors.

Autumn Crow - before the encaustic top layer

Crow after the encaustic layer

The encaustic wax does dull the colors, but you can touch the surface! It soaks into the paper layers and changes them somewhat.  The work can be shined with a soft cloth every couple of months.  

More information about the festival is here:

http://wildartsfestival.org/

They will put up a slideshow of all of the 6x6 works for this year before the festival.

Portland Audubon Society Wild Arts Festival

It's almost time for the Wilds Arts Festival held in November by Portland Audubon Society.

http://wildartsfestival.org/  This year it takes place on November 24 and 25.  Lots of art and books to peruse.

Corvus II, Corvus I, Blackbirds

There is always an open show of 6 x 6 art works to raise money for conservation.  I donated three pieces this year.  Water color topped by clear encaustic medium on 6 x 6 x 1.5 inch boards.  I love that the encaustic medium gives an atmospheric look to the art and it allows one to touch the paintings.  I struggled a little with this batch, but you can only be where you are at the moment. The middle one, Corvus I, was done while we still were dealing with smoke from the forest fires in the Columbia Gorge. Corvus II was more abstract. Blackbirds was inspired by blackbirds in the reeds by Cathedral Park in Portland.

Fall Post Card Swap 2016 - my cards

For this swap I decided to try the Etegami as described by Diana Trout on her blog:http://dianatrout.com/  It's the entry from 10/15/2016.

I wrote fewer words and mostly used letter stamps for the words. I ordered a custom chop, but it didn't arrive in time.  Most of the cards are using the paper rated "full blur." You can see how the paint spreads in the Nasturtium card below. The stamps are from Spain in the 1980's.  I found a stack of letters written by friends I met there in college.  I need to read through the letters again, but I'll save that for a nostalgia day. In the meantime I grabbed some of the stamps for the art project.

I'm obviously inspired by my surroundings: my dog, my cat, a mini pumpkin my husband has on his desk, an owl from the Audubon Society of Portland, indoor flowers we had from the market, nasturtiums and asters from our yard.

Speaking of the Audubon society, I just could not decide on a design for the 6x6 project this year. I gave up, but we did go to the show this weekend. We picked up a couple of steel ravens for the yard and notecards.

I've received about 5 post cards so far. I'll post those next time.

2015 Audubon Wild Arts Festival, 6x6 Wild Art Project

I dropped off two pieces of art for the Audubon Wild Arts Festival which will take place November 21 and 22 at Montgomery Park in Portland.

These were started last year, but I mixed up the due date. Of course, I left them unfinished until last week.

We have a couple of Scrub Jays that like to hang out on our patio. I have a large water bowl for the birds and the dog.



Scrub Jay - water color, collage and topped with encaustic medium.



Tilted - on a 6 x 6 x 1.5 inch art board
 

Aristophanes is the resident raven at the Portland Audubon Society. I took this photo of him a few years ago.

Aristophanes - photo collage with encaustic and sparkle
 



The two pieces together
 

The 6x6 Wild Art show is a benefit for the Audubon Society of Portland - the art works sell for $45 each. They're supposed to have a bird on them.

There's a lot of art and books for sale with a natural theme. It's very popular - as well as art and literature, you can see some of the resident birds from the Wildlife Care Center.

Here's more on the show: http://wildartsfestival.org/

Wild Arts Festival

Encaustic: Rue de Pic

The Audubon Society of Portland puts on the Wild Arts Festival every year - this was the 31st.  This year, the event was November 19 and 20, 2011.  I created a painting for the 6x6 show.  The art piece needed to have a bird as the subject. Art Media, now Blick Art, donated a 6x6 canvas. Each artist created a work of art and it is sold for $40. The artist received acknowledgement, free tickets to the events and some nice coupons. 

I painted a watercolor picture on water color paper and then affixed it to the canvas and added the encaustic to it.  Using heavy staples and a dark colored encaustic on the sides definitely give it a bit of an industrial look.  As usual, I enjoyed the combination of water color painting, language play (pic = woodpecker in French, and the Latin for Flickr is up in the left corner), real postage stamps and encaustic paint.

The show is fun - lots of people and art. Bob and I showed up Sunday afternoon and I was pleased to see my work was gone.  Phew - I didn't have to buy it myself!  I picked up some art cards of herons - inspiration for painting another favorite bird.

I barely made the deadline for the show.  I've been pretty lax and felt a bit rusty, but I managed to get something together!