Weekend Fossils

I got a new fossil replica in the mail this week-a Crinoid, and ancient sea lily creature. Since I had to use it immediately, I made my mold, and went to work. This piece is about 6 x 12 x 2, and is encaustic wax on a wood cradle with polymer clay, oil paint, paper, and alcohol inks.

I used colors that I don't normally work in, but I did enjoy the challenge. The background colors come from a piece of a paper towel that had ink on it from wiping my brush on it while working on an entirely different project.

The second piece is also encaustic wax on a wood cradle with polymer clay, oil paint, paper, alcohol inks, Pearl Ex, and freshwater pearls. It is smaller, about 5 x 5 x 2.

Clay Guild Swaps

For the last meeting of the year, the swap theme is "Oceans". I decided to work on a very small scale, about 2" x 2" x 1/2", or thereabouts, and included some of my smaller fossils. The fossil replicas are done in polymer clay and alcohol inks, while the background is encaustic wax, oil paint, and alcohol inks. While they are a little too thick to make pendants or pins out of them, I decided to add magnet strips to the back for refrigerator magnets.

Textured Fossil Pieces

I took a fabulous encaustic workshop in textures at the Encaustic Center, where I learned how to create textures with wax. I think this incorporates the fossil pieces into the wax much better, and I am happy with the results.

I also played around with the clay mixture, and am finding the current mix I am using is much easier to work with.

Both of these pieces use encaustic wax, polymer clay, alcohol inks, freshwater pearls and oil paint. The long piece is 5 x 15 x 2, and the square piece is 8 x 8 x 2.