Happy Thanksgiving!

Look who's come to stay with me this week ♥  Paul's sweet dog, Chloe.  I helped raise her from a pup and love spoiling her:

Christmas Projects

I don't think anyone in my family knows I have a blog, much less follows it.  So safe to show anyone who may stumble onto my blog what I've been up to.  Panic mostly!  I usually start making Christmas presents by August, but this year I just couldn't seem to get it together.  Finally at this late date I am making some progress.  This weekend, I got 2 done.  I'm having a blast making these:

This reindeer is bigger, but it came together pretty easily.  All my years of stamping show in this one :)

Branding Encaustic Project

Cheering that I learned a new technique and that it actually came together into a finished piece.  The technique is called "Branding".  You actually torch metal, place it on a piece of wood and burn into it.  Next step is to add wax, scrape, add more wax, scrape some more ..............  The final addition is oil paint which I've been dying to get my feet wet in.  This piece is called Bubble Chemistry:

Delightful Encaustic Class

Just could not resist taking an online encaustic class when I heard it was being offered. Encaustic is working with beeswax and pigments.  Love ♥ the instructor Judy Wise and am beyond pleased with her daily written instruction, instructional videos and personal feedback via class facebook page and yahoo pages.  I'm learning so much from her and so many generously talented people in the class - and my workshop is all set up so that I can just go in the next room and practice, post my work online and get immediate feedback.  How cool is that?  No driving alone late at night lugging art supplies, no worry about snowstorms.  Absolute heaven.  Finally technology I can cheer about!  If you are at all interested in encaustic, I highly recommended taking Judy's class.

This one is practice with laser copy transfer, inclusion, accretion, stencil and stamping.  I used some of the rust fabric I made as the background.  I wish I had placed her face better, but it came out pretty cool.