I was first introduced to encaustic as an art form back in college. This would have been around 2011! I was in art school at VCU and had volunteered my Saturday to work at the Curiouser conference that was held on campus. To be quite frank, after watching several demos, I thought encaustic seemed too persnickety and required too many specialized tools. It was hard for me to imagine an art form that had so many rules could be fun. This perspective just showed how little I knew about it! 

Many years later, COVID hit. Like so many others, I attempted various new hobbies while waiting for the world to start up again. (I even bought an electric mandolin... and promptly sold it a year later.)  I rediscovered printmaking. I took tons of walks. I appreciated the beauty of the New England scenery around me at the time. At some point, I decided that I'd like to try one of the encaustic techniques I'd read about using leaves from the trees that surrounded my house. 

There was a learning curve, don't get me wrong. Historically I have been very wary of heated tools after an unfortunate hot glue incident when I was a kid. Somehow, however, I found that the medium I'd considered too limited for my taste was actually much more accessible and freeform than I had ever guessed. Encaustic lends itself beautifully to both painting and sculptural elements. Not only can you melt it, you can mold it, carve it, build it, slice it, stamp it and layer it. You can incorporate images, objects, mica powder, sand, any number of textural elements and, of course, leaf imprints. 

I was hooked. Have been ever since. However, the limitations of both space and ventilation made it difficult to practice for a few years. Now that I have my own house with room for a studio in the Shenandoah Valley, the encaustic art can continue once more. See you in my next post.