Saying Good-bye to Asilomar

It's true; 2 posts in one day. I want to share the last of my photos with you before I move myself into the studio for some serious plaster play. This class, which was held on the first day of the retreat, was titled "Stencil Your Family" and that's what we did. Students sent me their photos ahead of time and I stencilized them, then we cut, collaged and waxed over our creations.

We had lots of family members, past and present and some that were borrowed for the occasion.

We had ooh la la nudes and movie poster lovers that were actual relations.

We had children in their best cowboy clothes. (Marian, I'll mail your proof to you if you contact me. It was left behind.)

We had bodacious sweethearts and blonde bombshells.

Grafitti inspired images in bold colors.

And a twin set for girlfriends to divide.

Children from photographs taken long ago that we wove into our creations.

Charlie Chaplin with the Art & Soul guitar logo and the face of a shy nephew.

A long distance runner with a bright future.

And a self portrait.

These charming images need to be clicked on for closer scrutiny. They are all wonderful. Again, sorry if I missed any; I always do my best to get them all.

I hope Stephanie won't mind that I share this beautiful photo of mommy and daughter. Melissa is 12 years old; that age of being squarely in the middle of child and adulthood. Don't you think she's the spittin' image of her beautiful mother? It was poignant to be around young daughters again. I loved it.

From Asilomar we drove up Highway 1, across the Golden Gate Bridge and to the house of our friends that you've met before on several travels to Mexico.

I couldn't decide which of two pictures of them to post. Do you like this one?

Or this one?
hee hee.

Asilomar Hot Palette Encaustic

On the second day at Asilomar I taught a class in hot palette encaustic. This is where we mix the wax medium on the hot palette with the color pigment to mix our own colors and paint with brushes. In addition, we experimented with a variety of wax techniques which you will see in the following photographs.

And so in no particular order, is a sampling of the beautiful work produced in class. Collage including tissue collage and random texture pigmented wax above.

Collage, wax, metal, intaglio.

Tissue collage, inclusions, pigmented wax.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment.

This one has a little bit of everything I think. Encaustic collage.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment.

Encaustic collage.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment.

Encaustic collage, faux gold leaf, tissue inclusions, wax and pigment.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment. A bit of stencil work across the bottom.

Wax collage, carbon transfer, tissue, stencil work.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment. Stencilled borders.

Tissue collage, faux gold leaf, wax and pigment.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment. Transfers, inclusions.

Wax, pigment, collage, inclusions, transfers.

Pure hot palette painting. Wax and pigment. Tissue inclusions.

Wax, pigment, transfers, collage, faux gold leaf.

Wax, collage, tissue, transfer.

Wax, pigment, transfer, intaglio, collage, tissue, gosh knows what all. Wheeeee!

Three works by the same artist in a variety of wax techniques.

Wax, pigment, collage, stencil.

Three works by the same artist in a variety of wax techniques.

Wax, collage, tissue, faux gold leaf.

Wax, pigment, collage, amber shellac.

Here are the wonderful students minus a few; patient and accepting of the power problems which challenged us but did not stop us. The night after teaching this class I dreamed I was drowning and they were throwing showers of life preservers to me. It was a wonderful, wonderful day and there was an amazing amount of work produced.

Here is an overview of some of the work. As you can see, there are pieces that I didn't even get photographed; I did my best but always miss a few. The day, the people, the experience was wonderful. One more day to go.

Asilomar Part 1

John and I arrived home from our road trip to Asilomar last night at 8 pm. It was the best road trip ever. We had summer heat, a cool, foggy stay at a 5 bedroom house in Pacific Grove right next to Asilomar (staying with Stephanie Lee and her family, Misty, Michael, John and Bee) and then a short overnight with our friends north of San Francisco. I hadn't been back to the bay area in several years and so this trip deeply satisfied my desire to see that land again.

I love the trees that grow around Monterey and the bay area; the mist rolling in and the flat, moody coloration. We did see the sun come out about halfway through; summer came and then stayed with us through the rest of the trip. In fact, Medford, Oregon was in the 90's when we passed through yesterday.

The images in this post will be from the Facebook class. We constructed a simple book out of mostly watercolor paper and did a number of exercises on the pages. The class was about exploring our own grafitti styles and painting faces; some collage and paint techniques thrown in.

We bound the books in lace and ribbons. The books were casually constructed and the imagery went well with the binding style.

Each student chose their own color palette and we talked about how art is a journey into discovering and inventing a personal style of expression. A look that will be our own and will tell our personal stories.

Some of the pages were paintings; I can imagine a large version of this persimmon colored one. That color always lights my fire.

I took photos during the painting process so not all of these pages are finished.

And I took soooo many pictures and don't have time to size them all so these are just a sample.

We talked a little about how painting has changed over the centuries. What we think of as good painting today compared with what was expected of Renaissance artists.

In addition to just enjoying the day, painting with our fingers, eating chocolate truffles and laughing a lot we had books to take home filled with samples of various painting techniques.

We surprised ourselves.

There was at least one student in the class who had never painted a face before. But you never would have guessed which one. Everyone's work was rich and wonderful.

Each book had 16 pages to fill with paint.

On the last morning John shot my photo standing in front of the house we shared with our friends. I was feeling mixed emotions here; thinking about the sea-change a week can bring. Right now I have e-mails to attend to but as I get caught up I'll tell you about the other 2 classes I taught and about the road trip. It was wonderful and my head is swimming with beautiful memories.