Posts by rsamiljan
Downtime and the New Year
2019 is coming to an end and I can not believe how quickly the time is passing! I survived my first participation in the One of a Kind Holiday Show and with much success will look forward to returning next December. The attendance was incredible, I loved that the show was four days long, and…
Read MoreReboot & Reload
I can’t believe it’s already been a month since my last summer festival participation. There was little time to recover and shift right into teaching mode! Fall, Winter, and Spring sessions I offer mixed media encaustic classes at the Evanston Art Center and North Shore Art League. My one remaining exhibition scheduled for 2019 is…
Read MoreSurvival…
Survival of the fittest! It is always a physical and mental challenge when I participate in summer outdoor festivals, from the packing and loading of work to exhibit, the loading of tent and panels required in order to hang and display work, to the unpacking and setup at the actual festival, and then the re-packing…
Read MoreSummer’s Arrival
It rained and rained and it was cold, damp, and dreary… and I woke up July 1 and finally summer is here! Despite the horrendous weather of May and June, art festival season is upon us. Two festival exhibitions are behind me now with four more to go. My next exhibition will be filled with…
Read MoreIt’s almost show time, Folks!
It’s hard to believe that a month from today I’ll be exhibiting at the Wells Street Art Festival in Old Town, Chicago. The weather has felt more like Winter than Spring, it’s one of the biggest factors that contribute to the success or failure of a show. My newest work is focused on organic patterns…
Read MoreRevival; before and after
Springtime is when I have to start planning my exhibition space for the upcoming summer festival season. It forces me to review art inventory, and re-assess what paintings are “show worthy”, and those that need to be re-worked. Ever since I started incorporating alcohol inks into encaustic medium, I have found a new way to…
Read MoreAlcohol Inks
I’m having the greatest time, playing around and learning about alcohol inks! The fun started by incorporating the inks and fusing layers of color into encaustic medium. The translucent qualities of the inks mesh beautifully with the similar translucency of wax medium. After an initial introduction to inks by combining them with encaustic medium, I…
Read MoreNew Year = New Bold Color
2019 began for me with an Award of Merit for my “Kabuki” painting in the Copley Society of Art small works show. This miniature painting was created by transferring the image of one of my 24″x18″ watercolor paintings fused into encaustic medium, then highlighted with pigmented wax and oil pastels. The translucent layers of wax…
Read MoreNew-Old Direction & Holiday Shows
This past weekend, I taught an encaustic “sampler” workshop at the Evanston Art Center. We used various mixed media materials that combine effortlessly with wax. In the demo painting below, mulberry paper creates a translucent linear wave pattern, I then added white shellac and oil pastel to highlight the setting sun over the ocean waves.…
Read MoreGeisha
New Geisha paintings Definition from Wikipedia: Japanese name Kanji 芸者 “Geisha (芸者) or geigi (芸妓) are traditional female Japanese entertainers. They are skilled at different Japanese arts, like playing classical Japanese music, dancing and poetry. Some people believe that geisha are prostitutes, this however is false. The term “geisha” is made of two Japanese words,…
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