the Magic of Encaustics: a guest post from Jess Greene

Today we are thrilled to bring you a guest post from Jess Greene of Seek your Course. Jess is going to be visiting Teahouse twice in the next few weeks - once for her Jumpstart Creativity tour and once for her Personal Narratives in Wax encaustics workshop.

I asked Jess to write about why she loved working with encaustics...take it away, Jess!

base layersEncaustic - hot beeswax and resin - is everything you want in an art medium and more. When hot it is a vibrant, colorful liquid that quickly produces transparent or opaque layers. When cold it is strong and solid enough to hold 3-dimentional shapes and to carve into. It accepts transfers, collage, stencils, embedding objects, and a wide variety of other art products. Wax can express and work with just about anything. In other words, it is the perfect medium to use when expressing what happens in our heart and soul. 

hot palettesharing our work

I started working with encaustic paints a few years ago. I immediately loved the appearance of the foggy transparent layers and the aged look it provided. Within a year I had set up my own studio, was taking every encaustic workshop I could get to and was learning as much as I could about the seemingly endless ways of using the medium. I learned that the misty translucency of the medium was just one way of using it. I learned and experimented with encaustic sculpture, books, and assemblage. I painted and painted some more. I even completed a month-long residency in Spain last fall to paint in encaustic for an entire month. It was transformational and I was hooked for good.

student work mosaicstudent workstudents working

work in progressBe intrigued by this medium. Come and learn its secrets in my two-day workshop. We will construct the beginnings of a personal narrative of symbols and stories. We will learn the tricks of manipulating hot wax. And then we will put the meaning into the wax. Encaustic will take us to new places. Join us!

About Jess:

photo credit: Danielle Intile of Winsome SmilesJess Greene was inspired to begin painting by artist blogs and the stories that artists post about their work. She started seeing herself as an artist after she went to her first art retreat. The amazing community of artists she found there led her to start Seek Your Course, an online database for creative learning opportunities. In 2011 she quit her day job as a teacher and spent a month in an artist residency in Spain. Her work focuses on telling stories of loneliness and happiness. Most paintings feature houses and represent the self on a search for places of safety and love. Find out more on her website.