Janice McDonald / Collage Art Studio

Gnarliness

I took this photo at a viewpoint overlooking the Pacific in the San Juan Capistrano area yesterday. There was a whole group of these wonderfully gnarly trees. I don't know what kind. The structure of this one reminded me of a hand reaching up to the sky. I'd been in California to visit relatives and unfortunately my mom fell and broke her hip, requiring surgery. I was able to delay my departure and stay a few extra days to help out. So I took this photo during a quick break away from the hospital. A foray into nature, however short, tends to put life into perspective for me. No ocean photos (although it was pretty) -- it was the trees that spoke to me of age and strength and determination. 

 

Constructed faces... "Sour" video

 

Loved watching this music video composed of many pieces, apparently all shot with webcams, a moving mosaic. The constructed faces reminded me of the look of some of my Foundling collages!

Waxy buildup

Here is another experiment from the encaustic workshop. This is on a gessoed 10 x 10 x1" panel and has layers of thick and thin papers embedded in the encaustic medium. In some cases the wax actual pooled into the pattern of a lace-like paper. I liked how the wax dripped over the edges and some of the process revealed itself.

Experimental encaustic

Here is one of my pieces from the workshop... This was done on a 12 x 12" birch panel, tacking a few collage pieces to the board and coating with encaustic medium as a base layer. Other collage pieces and white encaustic (white pigment suspended in beeswax) were painted on in a series of different layers. On the final layer, I created a pattern with a sewing tool that dug into the wax. Then I rubbed brown oil paint into the depressions to make the pattern visible and wiped the rest from the surface. It was interesting to see how quickly the wax obscures layers of materials and how the composition changes as the layers add up. I'll post photos of additional experiments soon... meanwhile, hopefully, I'll figure out how to photograph them a bit better! (...and what are those wheeled, perforating sewing tools called??)