I made it through the PULSE event on Saturday and had lots of fun as well! For those of you who missed the previous post about this event, it was a challenge to 40 artists to create work in 8 hours in front of a live audience in order to auction it off for the Children’s Heart Foundation at the end of the night.

I arrived at 11 am to start heating my wax and found that many of the artists had already arrived and set up. I didn’t get started painting until a little after noon because my wax took a while to heat up. I took that time to talk with a few of my friends where also participating and introduce myself to some new one.

This was a somewhat stressful experience since I chose a large panel that would normally take me double the time I had available, but I wanted to offer something large enough to raise some money for the kids. I used this as a challenge to simplify the way I work but to convey the same message and look in half the time. I’m very happy with the work I created and it is already in the hands of a happy new owner.

Here are some photos from the event:

My little home for the next 8 hours

It was an exciting creative environment with so many artists!

My first layer of paint and paper. I start bright then tone it down as I finish.

I brought two image choices, so I chose the one on the left based on how the background came out.

Using a doily as a stencil to add textured circles

A few hours into the day, Odette gave us quick chair massages to keep us limber.

Contact Odette here.

Soon afterward the place was packed. Good food, good drink, good music!

I used my book, Embracing Encaustic, to explain the history of the medium

Things started moving quickly as I approached my 8 pm deadline

Jennifer Mercede and Chris Haberman painting like mad!

Jane Pagliarulo printing monotypes

Lorna Nakell painting and drawing

Jeff Fontaine painting his welded metal panels

The first bid on my work came around 6 pm, with more than 2 hours left to paint!

Here is the final work, an extension of my Continuum series