Summer’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…

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It’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…

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Revival; 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…

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Alcohol 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…

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New 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…

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New-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.…

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Geisha

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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Summer Inspiration

I recently visited the Chicago Botanic Gardens knowing I would find visual inspiration. The colors of gorgeous velvety red roses in the Rose Garden, to the perfectly manicured bonsai and pine trees in the Japanese Garden, were a gift. In the English Walled Garden, I watched as wedding vows were exchanged, the scene felt like…

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3 down … 2 to go!

I am in the midst of summer art festival season and now have a three week break before my next exhibition in Evanston. I already started work on new miniature paintings, (they were a big hit at my last show on Michigan Avenue). I also plan on painting more Buddhas in order to completely fill…

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Meditations & PR

May is the month when I finalize my plans for upcoming summer festival season. I confirm I have enough work to fill my 10″x10″ tent space, and I usually try to create new marketing materials to promote the shows. This year I created a poster featuring the Face of Buddha in addition to my usual…

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