Whatever inspires me ends up my art journal, one way or another.  The Scripps National Spelling Bee, which was last week, is a family tradition here since we are an entire family of proud word nerds.  Perhaps that is why the word on the scrap of dictionary paper called to me.

And then that word met with an unfortunate Oops…but that was just an outstanding opportunity presenting suddenly.  Check out the video to see what happened!

Watch on Art journal play inspired by words and an Oops YouTube.

This is the scrap that started the whole page.  A piece of dictionary paper with some Bubbles stencil fun.

Want to see all the info on involute?  Merriam Webster has it all here.

  Supplies Used

• Vintage Typewriter stencil
• Bubbles stencil
• Fine Line Applicators
• High Flow Paint (in the FineLine Applicators)
• Gel Medium

I am forever in awe of the amazing abilities of these kids.  I was on the edge of my seat, holding my breath as each finalist spelled.  I can’t spell to save my soul but I do enjoy a good bee!   Even the helpful hints of the language of origin are of little help to me… but knowing the origin was Asian to French derived from French to Italian seemed to be quite useful to a speller in this year’s competition.

Here’s the tense last word…down to the wire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdLzHBOsl98

Watch feuilleton on YouTube.

But bees are aren’t all tension and nerves…there are some very funny moments.  Here are some of my favorite moments from past years….

Watch on numnah YouTube.

Watch sardoodledum on YouTube.

When Enkaustikos and Linda Roberston sent me an encaustic kit to play with I was thrilled.  I’ve wanted to explore painting with wax for a long time.

Every paint brush, the wax, a PanPastel, the tools, the wood cradle – it was all in the kit from Enkaustikos. This box was loaded with just about everything I needed. The only additional supplies I needed were a griddle and a heat gun.

Linda Robertson has wonderful tutorial videos that  explain how to use all the supplies in the kit and get started with encaustics. Best part, access to these videos is included with the kit!

I watched those videos and then gave it a try.  Linda did a great job explaining things for a newbie so I felt comfortable turning on the heat and giving this a try.

I decided to embrace the fact that I am a beginner at encaustic.  As a beginner, I allowed myself to mess it up, try different techniques, and most of all I had no expectations.  That let me play…Here’s what I learned during my play:

That first layer is a base and gets obscured in the layers.

Since I have a couple of stencils in my studio, I picked up my Crosswords stencil.

What it looks like in the early stages was no indication to me of how it was going to look later on in the process.

Using the wax is just like painting.  The colored waxes can be very opaque or translucent.  The cool part is I can control that by how much clear wax I mix with a color.

Here the white is at almost full strength so it is very opaque.

PanPastels are scrumptious on the wax.  Really scrumptious…addictively scrumptious.

The layering is addictive.   I told myself “this is the last layer” over and over…I just couldn’t stop.

The bubbles, holes, whatever they are called on the far left are just heavenly texture to me.

There is lots of texture since I liked to pile on the wax.  Not surprising since I like to pile on paint when I create.

So much variation came from mixing my own colors using the griddle.

Cloudiness is temporary.  Here is with the last layer on it before it finished cooling completely.

This is what it looks like after it has cooled completely.

A huge thanks to Enkaustikos and Linda Robertson for inviting me to play with their fabulous kit! Be sure to check out all the other artists on this hop to see how experienced encaustic artists have used the kit!