Illustration Friday: Egg

A few years ago I made this book about Western Bird's Eggs. I wanted to try making a book with encaustic pages. Encaustic is a wax-based paint and it has to be warm to manipulate it. While painting you usually have puddles or jars of paint on an electric griddle and you can apply it with brushes, pieces of cardboard, palette knives or whatever works. You can carve into the paint, scrape it away, or add other color with oil sticks.

To make these pages I painted on mat board because whatever you are painting on has to be pretty rigid. I didn't want the outside of the book to be waxy, so I painted a sheet of paper with watered-down acrylic paint. I really like how the full sheet of paper turned out but I didn't take a photo of it.



This was a fun experiment for me but not one I tried again. If you want to see beautiful encaustic work, check out my friends' websites:
Laura Wait www.laurawait.com
Susan Thompson www.susanjthompson.com

Happy Easter!

Another Craft Project

A loooooooooong time ago when I was 8? 10? I started braiding this rag rug. The cotton gets folded neatly as you braid with little metal cones- these ones were my great grandmother's, I think. Every 5 or 10 years I rediscover it and braid some more. The last time I pulled the rug out I decided to start sewing it together. But I must have been crazy because I made it super long and skinny! In rearranging the house for our baby due soon, I found the rag rug again. But when I laid it out on the floor like this, I decided I need to undo the stitching holding it together and make it a MUCH shorter oval.

So even though I'm still working on the mobile, I've started working on the rug, too. It's a good thing to do when I'm exhausted from the day and I'm sitting on the couch with my husband in front of the TV. I hope to get back to printmaking soon, but in the meantime my other oddball projects sure are fun!

Mobile Update

I had enough pieces to make two sunshine mobiles at a time, so I decided to do that and give one to a friend. I think they are going to be really fun and colorful when they are done!