three lovely days to play

I have been in Albany at a three day encaustic workshop with three different tutors. I really enjoyed it because I wanted to learn about Encaustic wax stuff and how I might use it in my textile work. I flew down and back, shared a room with a lovely lady from Geraldton, went walking every morning, had my coffee and breakfast at the Vancouver Cafe - albanypetphotography.com and all of our lunches and dinners were catered by them too. only problem was that dinner was so early, everyone was off to bed very very early and I was let standing at 9pm all alone.

Day one was Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch who is one of the encaustic gurus and she went through all the basics and then more. I was a little daunted when I arrived to find I had paid for a large pile of very thick boards (which are now on their way in someone else's car) - I enjoyed the play but boards are not really me so I took the opportunity to try other things as well. Watercolour paper - fibres - fabric - stitching - I can see it all happening.....

 This was what I think might be a sort of landscape - lots of people were very abstract and I didn't actually enjoy just meaninglessly dropping wax - for me it needed to do something. When you are in a workshop situation you don't always get to play with the colours you like but I loved the encaustic medium - which we sell now - and I loved the encaustic blocks which we don't sell yet because of the extreme price I have to pay at the moment. but we do have the little ones very affordable which are very good too. I am off to buy cake tins etc to melt my wax in.

 I did some image transfer and found some of my skeleton leaves and of course happened to have a gold shiva stik in my bag. I also loved using the pan pastels which we should have soon as well.

 I took very little with me because I wanted to have an open mind - of course I wished I had taken lots of stuff once I got started but for this piece I used heavy water colour paper - alcohol inks and stitched silk rods. I discovered foils work very well - stencils are ideal - TAP is excellent and more.

Day 2 was Trace Willans and she is everything natural so we did some natural plant dyeing on water colour paper, used natural pigments - out will come my wonderful collection from Rousillon - and other things but definitely natural.

I went to the farmers market on Sat morning and brought home some super thick strawberry jam, strawberry vinegar and olive oil and managed to buy a couple of big blocks of bees wax as well.

Day 3 was Julia Sutton and 2 and 3 D. Julia got us to come up with a number from 10 to 30 and collect the appropriate number of something from out in the environs. I have a thing about smallness for travel so I found 13 wood chips in the garden wrapped them with silk thread and waxed the lot. Then I ventured out again and collected another 13 which I wrapped in plaster bandage and waxed each and wrapped each and then wrapped everything - pleased with this because I am working more into what I might do.

There was a variance of people there - people who obviously loved to draw and were not into textiles and others. So a great diverse group. So now - I just have to find time and get exploring more.


When I got home lastnight Ian had a bbq all prepared and it was great to sit outside and enjoy it. not necessarily a good weekend for our rugby teams....