Beeswax Tapestry

I created my second beeswax tapestry collage on Sunday, at a play date with my artsy play date buddies. My camera died and my phone camera decided to be petulant as well. So i only have mine to show you. Once the gals put their finishing touches on their pieces, i'll get a second chance to photograph them.
My tapestry came out of searching through my stash looking for inspiration. I planned only to NOT use any birds.  Yeah - i am trying to break out of my comfort zone! I originally planned to use a cabinet photo as the center piece.  But nothing, as they say, "spoke to me".  So i went instead to a drawer of vintage photographs and grabbed the three shown above. The church on the left is a postcard.  the woman and girl was from a book of victorians with their pets, and the couple in the car with a young boy was an actual photograph.
From there i thought ok, how about a house for this family?  How about a floor plan of the house?  I have several house plan books - i love looking through them and imagining i live there.  From there i thought some vintage ephemera - actual bills and legal documents (bought on ebay), one shows a jewelry store receipt.  Then i found the little book on marriage and ripped off the cover.  Then i saw the paris monuments book cover (a copy) and liked how the orange-y and reddish colour story came together.  From there i invented a trip through europe - perhaps on their honeymoon?  I added maps, monuments and postcards.
Once the entire piece was laid out, i trimmed all the papers and glued them to the canvas.  Then coated it with beeswax and added three dimensional objects like the old key, a little spoon, buttons, and lace.  A bit more beeswax, some black oil pastel to outline the patches and voila! A Family Beeswax Tapestry!!

Here is a much nicer picture of the beeswax collage tapestry i did a few weeks ago. You can see all the lovely birds!

Photos curtesy of Lucie Duclos.

Anyone local to the bay area?  Lucie will be teaching beeswax collage classes at Liquid Marin in San Rafael.  Please check out their website for information about upcoming classes.