Tomorrow is the day

It will be interesting to see who comes to our open studio/ pillow show room tomorrow. It is off season in San Miguel, but I am hoping that San Miguel regulars will stop in. 

Many of the pillows have been moved from the upstairs show/work room to be placed "on site" downstairs. 

I plan on doing an encaustic demo. I actually got my studio clean after last week's workshops.

We have also been busy with pets going to the vet. Our rescue dog was neutered yesterday. We have been caring for her for almost 3 weeks and the problem is that we have fallen in love with her. She is the dearest dog I have ever met and I pray that she will be in a loving home soon. Our old Boxer has skin cancer and an infected ear, and I fear my old cat is ill and wanting to leave this planet.

Open Studios

I am looking forward to opening my studio and Cynthia Hamilton's show room on May 16th. You and your friends are welcome.

Joaquin Piñiero, a well know local painter woking in mixed media and encaustic will also have examples of his work here. Joaquin was my first encaustic student almost 14 years ago. He has taken the medium and made it his own in his strong, personal art.

There will be 20% off of any of my available paintings and 20% off of the Once Upon My Pillow, one of a kind, eco-friendly, hand embroidered, decorated pillows. The sale is good for that day.
I offer time payments, without interest.

directions to studio/gallery: http://www.ezshwan.com/directions-to-studio.html

Advanced Encaustic Techniques

If you have been following my bog for a while, you probably have noticed that I have several online classes. Here is one for those who can't make it to San Miguel de Allende to take classes with me :https://vimeo.com/ondemand/4167

Encaustic lends itself to many different techniques, and is beautiful on its own. Below are just some of the many techniques I have used in encaustic.

Just have fun, experiment, and make sure you do not use any acrylic.

encaustic and oil glazes

encasutic over water color on paper

ink wash, charcoal, encaustic,

collage, pan pastel, encasutic

detail of water spray into encaustic for lava-like texture

countless layers of colored encaustic, drawing with charcoal and hours of scraping

encaustic over tissue paper collage and texture built up with a hot pen

stained support, layers of encaustic, small collage and carved figures into the encaustic.

detail of melting encaustic over encaustic and oil

charcoal dust in between layers of encasutic

detail of encaustic stenciling 

carved encaustic over contrasting painted layers. 

encaustic on paper

encaustic with cold wax stenciling

encaustic, oil paint and shellac burn

Why Do I Keep going Back To Encaustic?

I have been going in several creative directions this year. I haven't settled on a series yet. You can see the variety of work that I have made at: http://www.ezshwan.com/2018-paintings.html

Finishing a portrait in oil last month, I made some more cold wax paintings, but my favorite, so far has been the "Really Red" encaustic painting. See above, alongside the Tattoo painting. The red painting is really hard to photograph because of the many layers of shiny red encaustic. I did contrast the shine with mat cold wax.

It was over 20 years ago that I fell in love with the encasutic technique when I saw it in a gallery in Portland OR.  The surfaces of the abstract paintings were like nothing I had ever seen. I left that gallery thinking, “I must find out how to do that.” There was little technical information about encaustic available at that time. I went to a Barnes and Noble, bookstore searching the shelves looking for information on encaustic. I realized later that the technical information that I found was wrong. It was the formula for cold wax, lots of stuff that should never be heated. I made mistakes, even using acrylic gesso on the supports and then having whole paintings slide off the surfaces when I returned to my Oregon studio on a sunny day.

Now we are inundated with encaustic info, some of it illuminating and beneficial, and some of it just wrong. I shutter at some of the “how to” encaustic videos I have seen. Anyone can post a YouTube video, or an online class after taking a workshop and become an instant teacher, but some of these people are not making archival work or using true encaustic. Just another reason that I love teaching encaustic workshops.

I am sorry that I can now longer access my workshop blog, so please check out the class workshop on my website, if you are interested: http://www.ezshwan.com/classes-and-workshops.html

I meet people on the street and am often greeted by, “You’re Ezshwan the encaustic artist!” I smile and avoid explaining that I can do more than paint in encaustic; however I am also flattered that I have made a name for myself with my exhibitions and classes.

The Many Lives of An Encaustic Painting

I started this painting some time in early February and it sat leaning on the studio wall for weeks. I did take 9 days off to visit the Yucatan and have been working on other paintings as well.It had many changes. I started off with oil paint that I applied with my gloved hands. That was fun and freeing, but there is not sign of the the original surface anymore.

Can you help me with a name other than "Really Red" ?

First stage. Oil paint on cradled board

Now I am into several days of applying encaustic; going back and forth from this painting, the commissioned portrait and 2 other paintings.

The surface is now covered with many, many layers of encasutic. It can't get much redder!

To break up the beautiful shiny surface, I stenciled oil and cold wax on top of the encaustic. I like the mat texture that contrasts with the bright encaustic

detail

Women's History Month

For 12 years, I painted nothing but jazz musicians. As I traveled with my late husband, Kai Winding, htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUj2fKFX7A,  I always had a sketch book in hand and rapidly drew ink sketches of the performers. Even a few years after Kai's death, I continued to focus on the mostly male jazz musicians. One day I realized that that subject was not part of my life anymore. I am not a musician, I am a painter. Females were the biggest part of my life. I have 3 daughters, my partner in the gallery we co-owed in Scottsdale AZ, was a woman; most artists are women...

Then I started my women focused work. It is interesting that I was asked, "What's the matter?
Don't you like men?" All those years that I was drawing and painting men, no one asked if I didn't like women.

The Jazz Festival in Holland

Stan Getz in Nice, France

"I Open My Hand And Let Go from the series, "Her Journey"

"The Maiden and The Crone" from the series, "Every Woman is a Goddess"

Last year, I completed a series of women artists.

Here is one of them:

As I write this, I realize how many series have been focused on women.  I DO LIKE MEN.

Here is a series that I made 2 years ago; "Women Who Changed the World" I removed Suu Kyi, destroyed the painting, after she changed and ceased to be a hero. Here is the short video of that series.
https://vimeo.com/146562085

New Online Class

 Figurative encaustic paintings

I filmed an informal session in my studio of me painting a portrait in encaustic. It is as if you were standing right new to me in my studio watching me work.
https://vimeo.com/251237255

I found that it is a challenge for me to talk while I work. but it is easier to see my palette layout and the use of brushes and tools to create a portrait.

Here is the first comment on the class: "Excellent. I have the book "A step by step guide to creating portraits in encaustic" by her but this video is way more enlightening. Seeing how she works from straight oil paints with only encaustic medium as a carrier is very informative. Watching her work back and forth through the composition is incredibly helpful. Because it gets to the same stage every painting gets where it looks like a mess. But then you see her work through the same steps in increasing detail until it's done. She uses almost no tools - 3 brushes and a pottery carving tool. And the only colored encaustic she uses is black (and that probably wasn't required because she could have used china marker or black oil pastel stick). It does take oil paints to follow this, just a couple reds, a couple yellows, a couple blues, white and an ochre (if you want to do it the same. but the same results could have been achieved probably with a limited palette of red, yellow, blue, white and burnt sienna) At the end where she rubs in oil pastel was very useful is seeing how to get very smooth skin textures if you want. Well worth the money, more useful than the book and faster delivery than the book."

Here  is the intro video:https://vimeo.com/251554130