New Work

3 Papyrus - 11 X 14 - $150

I'm going to start releasing some photo's of work that will be part of my upcoming show as Featured Artist at Trails End Gallery for the month of June, opening night is June 2nd 3-6pm.

This piece is of course beeswax, color, collage, oil and raffia and  it is the piece I started at the Dot's and Doodles demo on April 28th. Luckily I've recovered from the cold I had and applied my attention to completing this so those great folks who were in attendance can see how it finished up. I've include the price if any of you are interested in purchasing just email me at www.bmallon@centurytel.net.

I will be doing another demo during the opening of the show at Trails End and it will be a somewhat abstract rendition of tulips but will allow me to demonstrate some of the techniques we'll be doing in the workshop I'm going to be teaching later on in August at Trails End.

Today, I'm finishing up some smaller sized paintings in the 12 X 12 to 11 X 14 range that may be included in the show so that there are plenty of pieces and price ranges. Tomorrow I'll be finishing the sides of the cradles with stain and Monday I'll be wiring up all of the pieces. I am going to be submitting work for the International Encaustic Association juried show "EncaustiCon" to be held in San Antonia, Texas in September 2012. These shows have encaustic artists from all over the world submitting and it's all very interesting.

It's cool and humid out and I wouldn't be surprised if rain were in the works for today - in other words a perfect day for working in my studio. Have fun yourselves!

Working, working, working

I've been doing serious head down work getting a nice group of encaustics completed for my show at Trails End Gallery in Gearhart, Oregon where I'm the Featured Artist in June. So far I've got 18 pieces completed in a range from 12 X 12's on up to 18 X 24's. All hang together pretty nicely I think. I'm going to be finishing up 4 or 5 smaller ones in the next several days just so I'm sure I'll have enough work to go up. So all of you are welcome to come to the opening on Saturday June 2nd, from 3pm to 6pm when I'll be doing a demonstration as well as meeting and greeting people.

Also, after the show is up, I'll be putting the work on this blog for people to see. The shot of these great pines figures into one of the encaustics I completed. In every batch of paintings I do, there does seem to be one more realistic one and that is invariably the one that sells at shows down here. Not much interest in abstract work out here on the coast but that's the way the beeswax resin mixture takes me so I show it here at Trails End before shopping it to other city/mainstream galleries.

I really can't complain about the weather at all here this last week. It's just been raining buckets but the grass and shrubbery is a beautiful vibrant green in probably 25 or 30 shades - achingly lovely this time of year. Also, being that wet means that gardening chores are pretty much out of the question so without guilt I use that time well in my studio. Next week though there will be plants to plant, pots to get seeded and hung up, and feeders both hummingbird and yellow goldfinch to set out! Watch for some great pictures.

See you at the Trails End Gallery opening!

Land of the Living

Am finally now just starting to feel a whole lot better after nearly 4 weeks of being down with a bad cold or possibly whooping cough. The weather has shifted away from cold rain and wind to more mild days with sun and up to 68 degrees though we are still having pretty cold nights - which is unseasonable for us. But then the seasons are doing their own thing these days. It has certainly brought out the tourists.

Now I'm raring to go and have already started producing some great new work for my upcoming Featured Artist show in June at Trails End Gallery in Gearhart. I'll be doing a demo there during my 3-6pm artist reception on Saturday June 2nd, and I'll be hanging a lot of encaustic work. I will also have a catalog for the 2011 Encaustic Masters Show of which I was one of the artists showing some of the finest encaustics work being produced so ask to see it for inspiration and all the varied ways that this medium is being used. All of the artists at Trails End Gallery really pull out the stops for the summer months when traffic through the gallery is high and the prices are reasonable for such talented artists so stop by frequently and see the varied and interesting work.

All of a sudden 3 species of birds are really flocking here and they always seem to arrive at the same time - hummingbirds, gold finches and bald eagles. Below is a picture I took last year of the arrival of the gold finches. We don't actually need to put up feeders for them since there appears to be plenty of food for them but it does lure them closer for some nice photo's! They like the thistle seeds but the second picture has them sitting on top of the hummingbird feeder. The background is Willipa Bay with the tide out. We do get lots of flocking sea birds - lots of various sand pipers doing their lovely, fascinating flocking behavior as the tides come in each day though that is hard to see with a camera.

Will be adding a few teaser photographs of wax work I'm doing but will be saving most of it for the show, so you have to come and see! Also, I will be entering 3 new pieces for the 2012 EncaustiCon -International Juried Exhibition to be held this year in San Antonio, Texas.

Upcoming Demo, Spring Tulips

Well I'm all packed up for my Demo tomorrow at Dots & Doodles in Astoria at 2pm. Should be an excellent demo. I've got a handout with my suggestions for tools and equipment you need to start out and I'll have what a starter set would entail sitting out at the demo so people can see. I also have some beginning exercises for newbies to try out should they want to get started right away. There will be lots of samples and paintings to touch and feel that I will hand around and there will be a demo - which I'll try to get through in 1 hour (and if I don't finish there, I will do so at home in my studio and I'll post it here). So come and have a good time looking at interesting encaustics.

Here are 2 pictures of tulips I planted this fall. The light here in the wintertime is so weak and overcast that I wanted something really bright and cheerful to see from my windows. These Appledorn varieties actually entice me outside nearly every day to see how they are doing.

I have a painting friend who told me the story of going to a workshop in Arizona and there really learning what color was and how it could be used in the landscape -- and how it just rocked her world because up until then she never had really understood how thin and weak the light is here in the northwest especially during winter and spring days. When she came home and stepped out of the airplane it was absolutely a shock! So below is an example of a shot I took out here on the coast which is such a typical shot during this time of year - not only is the light thin and weak but many of the plants and all of the grasses lack color - for us they live in that dun colored hibernation until spring has really turned into summer. Even if the sky is blue and the sun is out, it looks like this. Which of course is why a good dose of spring tulips in the very brightest colors I can find is a necessity for the spirit!

On the other hand, you notice that the walker is wearing shorts - such is life in the mild marine Northwest - not too hot--not too cold ---just right!

Some Encaustics for fun...... and other pursuits

Here are two recent encaustics I completed and such fun they were to work. I'm going to submit them to some juried shows that I usually enter this time of year - one up in Edmonds and one in Bothell. The layers are so lovely and in the first one the textures turned out so nice as well. This beeswax thing is just so darned addictive that I can't stop.

I thought I'd do some pieces in the near future with some realistic images in them so that people who enjoy more tangible objects can see how great this medium can be with those sorts of paintings as well. And since Spring has finally seem to have sprung around here I think I can promise tulips and hummingbirds as subjects. Suddenly both are around!

Spring does feel like the time to delve into new projects doesn't it. For instance, even though I've been a knitter all of my life, I've suddenly gotten this bee up my bonnet about learning to spin - especially colorful art batts and then to weave the new handspun on a small ridgid heddle loom.

I don't have a spinning wheel or a loom and I never have had, but I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day - Stephanie McPhee's Yarn Harlot blog www.yarnharlot.ca/blog and she has done 2 such escapades within her last 6 or 7 posts whereby she has dipped into her stash, pulled out some lovely wool batts, spun then and then decided on a weaving project instead of knitting the handspun. So cool.

Now of course, Stephanie is a very fine fiber artist and a very experienced professional knitter, spinner and weaver but even so - WOW. Just clear out the blue she has veared off her normal course and I believe she has lit the fiber world on fire once again! Her blogs often have over 300 comments and they just jump when she does something like this. So the upshot for me is how long can I withstand the longing to jump into something new for me?

I guess we'll find out! :-)

Now To Work

Yes, as you can see my world at the beach is filled with regular winter sights. Here is the most recent grey whale that washed ashore in late March. It's had a necropsy by biologists and then the carcass was buried but for a time drew quite a bit of attention - from people and seagulls.

No trash has yet to arrive from the Japan tsunami  but we expect a lot of people to come to pan for interesting bits and bobs.

We also have had several successful clamming weekends here on reasonable morning tides so this will probably be it for razor clams until Fall. The weather for the most part has just been ferociously stormy and rainy.

I'm now working on a group of encaustic pieces that reference my Burn series and my Rune series for a "Featured Artist" layout in June for Trails End Art Association and Gallery. Stay tuned and I'll post them as I get them finished and cropped in PhotoShop. And I'm entering 2 juried shows in Edmonds and Bothell this year with encaustics. Encaustics are now being shown more regularly in galleries so I'm hopeful that people will enjoy seeing them and will be disposed to buying them. I'm also doing 2 free demo's at Dots and Doodles in Astoria to give the community a chance to see how it's done and develop and attraction for the medium.

Wind and the Kingdom

I got to wondering last week what all the wind was about, and what it was named. We had sustained wind in the 20-25 mph range with gusts up past 50 mph. You could tell it was just sucking the moisture right out of the evergreen tree's and bushes which had been growing lush and comfortably and looking forward to an early spring. But this wind was a cold, dry, high speed sustained wind coming straight east out of Columbia River gorge - originating I think in Eastern Washington. We have this wind most often in the summer time coming from the inland but it's a hot, dry, high, sustained wind and it usually hits in August when the rest of our weather is hot enough. I think it is what is responsible for boosting our temperatures during August into the high 90's during those years when it gets that hot. What was it's name?

The Chinook Indian Tribe, one of the tribes mentioned in the Lewis and Clark diaries, lives here on the Washington coast and is trying to get recognized in the other Washington as a distinct and long uninterrupted Indian tribe. And having heard of a wind called the "Chinook Wind" I was wondering if this was it.
A short google away told me it was not. In the Pacific Northwest here and particularly on the coast we periodically get a big wet, warm, tropical-ish, fragrant wind arising from and coming in the winter from the south-west direction that the news casters and thus all the rest of us now a days call a "Pineapple Express". It's just like a hose of bath water - not really unwelcome because it does relieve the tedium of cold days and it smells so much like spring. This is or was properly called a "Chinook Wind".

Further reading identified the wind we are now having as coming from the easterly direction of the inland plains to be a "squamish" or if you're in Alaska a "williwaw" wind. So mystery solved and I now know what to call these winds. They are both big winds with big impacts on our coastal climate. All good to know.

Just got in my 1/2 inch 6X6 and 8X8 slotted fiber boards for the encaustic tiles I'm going to try painting in wax so I can place some artwork in the local shops at realistic prices. Oil painting is coming along well and just started another sunset picture in browns and carmels - here's a picture.

There is something about the atmospherics in the winter here especially right before it gets real cold that brings out these fantastic sunsets - you just have to paint them.

We've been watching "Kingdom" on Netflix....it's a 3 season British television series of 18 shows starring Stephen Fry and Herminone Norris and Celia Imrie - a good show.