Vacation Painting

In July we spent some time in the Laurentions, the cottage country north of Montreal. We stayed in my sister's little cabin, next to their larger cottage. It is a cute summer place with nice vintage touches. As a gift to my sister and her family i painted a couple of pictures. This one was based on a picture taken at Ogunquit Beach in Maine, in about 1966.

That's my sister on the top, then me and my two brothers.

 Here is a bit of a close up.  I am not very good at faces.  but it is meant to be whimsical!

 I also painted a "paint-by numbers" image.  This was mostly just to relax and do nothing by the lake.  My sister's niece helped me out a bit with some of those tiny specs of paint.  It was a real challenge!  Well my sister found an old frame which set it off nicely!

 Here it is without the glare!

Ah...July at the lake - it was wonderful....!

Beeswax Collage Students Rule!

We had a whirlwind class on Sunday with a group of 7 lovely women. One i had previously met at Asilomar, who took the Ann Baldwin class with me. One was the assistant to the owner of the studio where the class was held, the Nova Studio, in Point Richmond, CA. Then a group of three friends, and two "singles". There's my sample in the lower right corner of this pic.

We started with a quick demo of coating the canvas board with a thin coat of wax, and layering on background paper. Next i applied the focal point image, in my case a bevy of bathing beauties. The images were all cut out of the matte photo paper, this allows the image to "live" on the new background created by the papers used on the canvas board. A coat of wax on top initially obsure the images, but a few strokes with the small quilt iron smooths the wax leaving the image clearer on the collage.
I next applied some mulberry paper with gives a hint of color and texture, without obscuring the background, in my case a bit of dictionary paper. Then i added a piece of seam binding lace - allowing the wax to build up in the holes. I demonstrated how you can add colour by melting a crayon on the canvas and moving the wax around with the quilt iron. A heat gun is also used to remove excess wax. I added some shells and beach glass along the bottom and the word PLAGE (beach in French) to the top. I kept things pretty linear and simple - since sometimes trying too hard to make things complicated is not any more interesting! A few beads strung on some copper wire added to the top and voila, a beach themed beeswax collage wall hanging.

The students did a fine job creating two canvases. Some chose to do lively bright pieces, some chose simple understated elements. But everyone created artwork to take home they can be proud to display!