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 Above is my recently completed encaustic and mixed medium painting

"Japonais" ... 20 x 24

I had purchased some vintage Japanese accounting books (below ... from a Japanese website) and other vintage Japanese books, and these were embedded into the wax. I have also rubbed oil stick into the wax. As oil sticks also have wax, they are easier to rub into the surface in a controlled way.

This one is an older painting that I added . . guess what? . . circles!

"Semiotic Series, #3", 12 x 24

encaustic & mixed medium

This one has a lot of book pages embedded in the wax first, but as I worked, adding layers of wax, they became muted. This also has oil stick rubbed into the surface. The circles are pastel that are burnished into the wax with paper. The other two pieces in this series are sold, and another artist/facebook friend is interested in this one. It was also juried into an upcoming show, but Japonaise, above, was not. 

I'm noticing that I'm becoming more and more drawn to adding orange to my more neutral palette . . hence . . the first one.

I've had some life challenges since I last posted and just haven't felt like posting . . and haven't even been following others' blog posts! Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest have been enough for me. So much art to look at.

I'm still painting, but I have a lot of unfinished pieces.

Now I'm working on a large piece with oil and cold wax. It's for an upcoming show I may enter, however, because it's titled . . "Blooms, Bugs, & Beasts" . .

and I don't do those, I'm contemplating what kind of flower outline to position on the abstract surface composition.

I came across this sentence somewhere on the internet. I copied it along with it's author, because it spoke to me about the inner dance I'm feeling now about whether or not to return to combining realism with abstraction.  

"The artist should have the perfection

of a surgeon and the spontaneity of a child"

. . . Guillermo Foures