Ornaments

Every year the North Texas Polymer Clay Guild has a December pot luck and swap that usually involves an ornament of some kind. This year since I am still liking fossils, I decided to incorporate them into an ornament of some kind. Usually I make ornaments with faces, but wanted something different for this year. We make 3 for trading, and I will receive 3 different ornaments to take home.

Swaps are wonderful ways to receive art from other artists, and I am looking forward to the swaps for this year.

The small round ones are the ones I will be trading with guild members, and the larger tear drop shapes are done with the addition of encaustic wax, and I will be keeping those for our tree this year.

New Fossils

It has been a long time since I last posted. We have been on vacation to Virginia to see John's family, and we are now back home. My mother-in-law has built a new family room on the back of her house, and commissioned me to do these pieces for her walls. All 3 involve encaustics, and 2 have the fossils done in polymer clay. Only the 2 with the fossils are posted-the other one is an abstract. Now I will have to get these shipped up north.

Andrew's Dinosaurs

For my nephew's birthday his mother is redecorating his room in a dinosaur theme. Andrew will be 8 in November, and is wild about dinosaurs. I have made these 2 encaustic works with polymer clay dinosaurs to go with the new color scheme. I hope he will like them.

The larger one with the single Stegosaurus (Andrew's favorite), is 10 x 10 x 2 inches, and the smaller trio is 8 x 8 x 2 inches. They are done with encaustic wax on a cradle with polymer clay, alcohol inks, and oil paints. I hope he will like them.

Alchemy

Well, I have been working on a piece for an upcoming exhibit, whose theme is "The Alchemy of Encaustic". After talking with my friend Marcia from Houston, it just hit me what to do. I wanted to create a 3D image of an atom with electrons around it, and using wire and polymer clay, came up with this idea. I also used an image transfer and some stamps that I had made for this project.

Wax Play Day

On Saturday my friends Lisa, Carolyn, and Ellen came over to do a little encaustic wax. We had a great time, and finished some wonderful pieces! We turned my kitchen into an encaustic studio with 3 electric griddles, 1 hot plate, torches, heat guns, etc. and spent the entire day doing encaustic wax! Here is one of the pieces I finished, and this time I decided to extend the wax onto the sides of the piece instead of staining the sides of the board. I have several more pieces started, and hopefully will have time to prepare a couple for an upcoming encaustic exhibit at Kilgore College in October.

New Stamps

I have been looking for years to find a solution to getting stamps made from my own designs. Most of the commercial machines out there are just way too expensive for the limited number of stamps I wanted, and some of the old photopolymer texture sheets I have purchased are now too brittle and yellow to use without damaging them. Until now. I have used Ready Stamps in the past to have stamps made, and the rubber was just fine for stamping, but did not work well with clay and encaustic wax. I decided to contact them, and now they are making photopolymer plates in both the hard plastic and soft clear stamps just like the ones in the craft stores. I ordered 4 plates of designs from them, and I am really liking them! They are fabulous in both clay and wax! Here is a photo of some of my doodles and the stamps that were produced. Contact them if you want to have some of your own designs done.

Ocean Floor Fossils III

I have been working on this piece for a couple of weeks now. It is 6 x 18 inches, and I have been procrastinating about it for a while. I ended up not liking what was happening with it, so I have scraped it back several times, finally settling on its current look. I am glad that it is finished. My husband John wants it for his office, so I will get it ready to hang for him.

I also worked a bit on a friend's pet portrait, and when she approves it, I will post it here.

Denise's Cats

I totally forgot that I did these two digital portraits of my friend Denise's new kitten and one of her older cats. Angel is her new kitten, and she is very sweet, as you can see.

Etsy Store & Cheyenne

Well, I finally got a few pieces up in my new Estsy Store, so please check it out. I have not done much polymer clay or encaustic, but have been busy ordering supplies. I just realized how low I was, so I am now awaiting some orders to come in.

I also sent some of my images and drawings in to have stamps made, and when I get them I will have a "Show and Tell" here on my blog.

In the meantime, here is a cute photo of my now 8-month old husky, who is of course sitting in a chair where she is not supposed to be. I am a poor disciplinarian.

Ocean Floor Fossils II

I just finished another piece in the "Fossil" Series, which included the addition of polymer clay pieces from my mold collection of fossils. I also used the shellac burn technique, which is very unpredictable, but I always like the results.

I also played around a little more with a small board, and here is a little piece I am calling "Spirit". It also has polymer clay pieces incorporated into it, as well as alcohol inks, and oil paints.

Encaustic Collage

Yesterday I spent most of the morning playing around with encaustic waxes, and tried out some images in a collage piece. Usually I prefer more dimensional work, and more abstract pieces, but wanted to branch out for this little test piece. It measures 6" x 6".

I also re-worked a piece I did not like by scraping it all the way down to the bottom layers, then adding more waxes and more scraping until it came out a little better. This piece is 8" x 8" x 2", and has the sides stained and finished.

Tonight my husband and I are going to the closing reception of the "Meltdown" exhibit that has been running at the Art Hotel Gallery in Dallas. I had 4 pieces in this show as a student, and am pleased that 3 of them sold.

Fossil Series Addition

I spent all day yesterday with encaustic wax and polymer clay. I finished a small piece (below), and worked on another piece in my "Fossils" series.

I took a bunch of molds made from some actual fossils and shells, and put them together. Then colored them with alcohol inks. The encaustic wax is colored with alcohol inks and oil paints. It measures 9-3/4 x 10 inches.

I have plans to make another fossil piece similar to this one, with some changes in color and background. I hope to have the new one done by the end of the week.

Encaustic Play Day

My friend Lisa came over yesterday for an encaustic play day. We got lots of wax projects done, made encaustic medium, and our own colors. Since it is so hot here in Texas, we had fans going to try to cool off the room-we had 3 palettes going all at 225 degrees, so the room was very warm.

I finished two pieces, with polymer clay replicas of some of my own fossils and shells, and incorporated some cool shell beads I found at Michael's craft store. These colors are completely out of my comfort zone, but I am pleased with the way they turned out.

I now have all the pieces I wanted to get done for the Waxy 100 exhibit at the Encaustic Center in Richardson, Texas. This show opens Friday, August 14th at 7:00pm, and continues until September 30th, 2009. All entries in this show are under $100.00.

New Encaustic Series

Well, as promised, I am posting a new encaustic piece that is the first in a series I am planning. The piece includes a polymer clay mold that is from an actual nautilus fossil my dad owns. The rest of the piece includes encaustic wax, alcohol inks, cheesecloth, oil paint and oil pastels. I plan to do more with this nautilus mold, and will try to incorporate some other fossils that were given to me by my dad.

Art at Ellen's House

Last weekend some of us and I went over to our friend Ellen's house in Arlington for an art get-together. We had tons of fun, food, and got to work on whatever we wanted. While I was not as productive as some of the gals there, I did manage to complete 4 face pins like these two, and plan to open up an Etsy store very soon.

I also made a mold from one of my father's nautilus fossils (he is a retired geologist with many rocks and fossils about), and plan to use replicas in a series of encaustic works. I will post those pics as soon as I finish them.

New Doll

I have been working very hard over the July 4th weekend on a new art doll inspired by Joyce Cloutman's workshop, and some new encaustic pieces for the upcoming "Waxy 100" exhibit that will start in August. Since the due date for artwork is July 30th, I decided to get started now. Up to 5 pieces per artist will be admitted. I am excited to be able to participate in this. Anyway, here is the new doll. She is made from wire armature, polymer clay and encaustic wax.

Also, my friend Denise came over on Saturday to play with encaustic wax, and that is when I completed some wax pieces and started on a few more. This particular piece was something entirely different, but after scraping off the parts that did not work, I found this abstract was what it wanted to be. That is the way a lot of things turn out for me-I have something in mind, but the piece decides how it will turn out in the end. The piece on the left is actually my favorite of the ones that were completed this weekend, and I may just have to hang on to it for myself. We will see. Here are pictures of the other two that were completed. I still have to add the D-rings and braided wire for hanging, then they will be ready for the wall.

Butterfly Elf Workshop

I took an exciting workshop yesterday from Joyce Cloutman of Austin, Texas. She is just starting out teaching, and the workshop was great! I am pleased with my little butterfly, and am planning on using some of these techniques on a doll that I hope to start sometime next week. Of course I did not finish the butterfly during the class, and I was not sure what I would place in her hands. My friend Nina said that a little "pod" of sorts would look good, so she gave me some to try. I found one that worked fairly well, and used some acrylic paints and fibers on the pod. The body of the butterfly was painted with alcohol inks. While Joyce taught us how to sculpture more Elf-like faces, I prefer to use a face mold (I am not very patient with sculpting).

Studio Re-organization

A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to re-organize my art studio. It was truly a mess, with almost no working space. My studio is 10 x 11 feet, and I also have a closet to work with. This is completely adequate, but I had accumulated so much stuff that I could hardly move around, much less make art. So, I was ruthless and went through everything, putting aside anything that I had not used or read in the last couple of years, or was sick of. I also had a ton of just plain trash. I then made a list of everything that I wanted to sell off in order to make a little extra cash for even more art supplies! So I posted my list on the two groups I belong to, and everything went over the next 2 days! Now, everything is organized, and I am finding it much easier to create. Here are some photos of the studio as it is now. I now have all my computer and printing equipment at the "clean" side of the studio, hopefully away from paint and wax splatters. Hopefully, I can maintain this.

Galleries Posted

I have posted my galleries in slideshows in the right column, as I will be discontinuing my website at www.tdartdesigns.com. I am not sure when that website be going away, but it will be within the next week or so.

Cheyenne-6 Months

Well, I am practicing placing pictures to this new blog, so I thought I would start with recent photos of Cheyenne, who is now 6 months old. She is sitting on my husband John's lap, where she is very happy.

My New Blog

I have finally taken the plunge and put up a blog so I can share my art with all my friends and family! I will not promise to update daily, or even weekly, but whenever there is news I will post. I also plan to customize this page, so please check back whenever you have time.
Thanks,
Tricia