Linda Robertson Encaustic Set Blog Hop

I’m so thankful to be a part of this blog hop, and excited to see how everyone creates their own unique art using the materials in the new Linda Robertson Encaustic Set from Enkaustikos! (By the way, some of you may know me as Linda Womack, but it’s Linda Robertson now so please help me spread the word if you would be so kind…)

This set includes lots of encaustic paint and medium in my favorite colors, 4 brushes, a pot of cleaning wax, an 8 x 10 cradled panel, 3 essential tools, a stencil from StencilGirl Products, a pastel from PanPastel Colors and three of my online lessons showing how to use all of the materials together. Here’s a little video to tell you what it’s all about:

BTW, if you are brand new to encaustic you might want to start with my free video overview about encaustic materials (scroll down to “Extra Features”).

I like to practice what I preach in my classes that no board is unsalvageable, especially in encaustic, but this one was NOT looking good. It had colors that didn’t go together and was the product of a demo I did for a very large crowd in Santa Fe last year so it’s safe to say that it was far more spontaneous than planned.

The beauty of salvaging something is that you have those beautiful colors that come through the background and tend to be wonderful surprises.

Many artists who work with wax and stencils together try to get very precise imagery but that’s not always the goal. I decided to do something very loose on this one. This stencil, called Eddy Rose, is from StencilGirl, and was designed by Mary Beth Shaw.

To get this effect I painted the wax through the stencil as usual, but instead of fusing the stencil in place I pulled it up first and then fused it to let the pattern flow with the wax. The result was beautiful!

You can really see the difference in the center photo above, where the top part of the board is fused and the bottom portion is not. I repeated this a couple of times alternating between Zinc White and Super Gold Pearl paint from Enkaustikos which are both included in my set.

5th International Encaustic Conference

This encaustic conference event attracts artists all over the world and this year there were 35 states in the US represented as well as artists traveling from Canada, England, Mexico, Brazil, Spain New Zealand. The conference was held in Provincetown this year which allowed for some changes to the format and new venues for post conference workshops.  I think Joanne found an excellent partner in working with Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and its Executive Director, Cherie Mittenthal, who was wonderful to work with.

PROVINCETOWN

Our first night in P-town was spent at the Lobster Pot with Mike and Kathryn from Enkaustikos, Kimberly and Judy, my buddies from Portland. This was a great restaurant, not to be missed! They even had a nice steak for me (I’m allergic to seafood). Other restaurants we really enjoyed were The Squealing Pig, Bubalas, and the Portuguese Bakery which had real Malasadas like I get in Hawaii!

We managed to fit is several outings to the surrounding areas and I’m so glad we took the time to do it. Provincetown has so much to offer!

  

This is the view from the top of the 252 foot tall Pilgrim Monument in the middle of town. The web site  refers to the climb as a “heart-healthy walk to the top on 116 steps and 60 ramps,” which by the way is totally worth it.

We booked a dune tour which took us by the famous “dune shacks,” the simple beach cabins of numerous artists and writers during the past century. You can see one here in the upper left area of the photo. Below are cranberry bogs surrounded by sand dunes. It’s gorgeous out there!

I also enjoyed a sunset cruise on the last night, relaxing in the warm breeze. The Pilgrim Monument is way off in the distance.

GALLERIES

On Friday night we made our way to the several openings at galleries that were showing encaustic work in conjunction with the conference.

Later we discovered the wonderful Galeria Cubana, which didn’t have encaustic work but did have some fine paintings we enjoyed very much.

CONFERENCE

The conference itself was good again this year, with so many wonderful events going by almost in a blur. I’m including some photos below to give you a flavor of the event.

This year I was on a panel called Mastering Media, a discussion about marketing the art we’re all working so hard to make. I spoke about getting my book, Embracing Encaustic, from and idea into reality and many of the successes and bumps along the way. The audience seemed to really like hearing about all the craziness that went on behind the scenes. My fellow panelists were (from left) Jeff Schaller, Nancy Natale, me,  Cherie Mittenthal and moderator Joanne Mattera. Thanks to Corina Alvarezdelugo for allowing me to use her photo here.

This was our little posse for the weekend with Kimberly Kent, Judy Wise and Jess Greene.

Lisa Pressman gave a wonderful lecture with a behind the scenes look at several encaustic studios.

Greg Wright had the crowd cheering for his demonstration of working with shellac, inks and powders to make patterned effects. “Do you want to go a few minutes more?” he asked…

Jackie Battenfield, author of the excellent book, The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What you Love, was our keynote speaker. She got the crowd all revved up and organized in thinking about what we should be thinking about next in our careers.

Here’s part of my work in the hotel fair, a new addition to the conference line up. I’ll bring more next time, now that I see how much we all love to shop!

David A. Clark went all out with new work just for the hotel fair and a true installation style. Brilliant!

POST CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

There so much to do before, during and after a class, especially one that you travel to teach. Because of that many teachers will offer to assist a colleague on a pay it forward type of arrangement as I did this year.

I was the assistant for Charyl Weissbach’s Mainly Metals class at Castle Hill during the post-conference workshops. Charyl taught her students how to work with most things metallic, from paint to powder, pigment sticks and even metal leaf. Charyl was the assistant for my friend Kimberly’s class last year (see below).

  

Kimberly Kent had an adventurous class again this year with plein air painting in encaustic. See the little camp stoves and torches they are using? It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’re up for traveling with your wax it will allow you to paint directly from nature.

And that’s a wrap for this post on the 5th International Encaustic Conference. Nancy Natale and Lynette Haggard surprised Joanne with two huge cakes and a card signed by all to thank her for her efforts in making each conference so special. Nancy is pictured here with Cherie and Joanne on the right, wearing special hats for the occasion.