Studio

I use commercial and  homemade pigments. After grinding or mixing a range of powdered minerals, botanicals, liquid inks or oil paints,  I suspend the  pigments in heated beeswax adding small amounts of melted, purified damar resin as needed.

Years of dyeing fabric and experimentation with sumi painting and suminagashi (floating ink on water) have enhanced my encaustic practice. I like combining inks with encaustics and sometimes use my suminagashi work as a substrate for encaustic monotypes.

Walks along the sea bluffs or in local forests often produce inspirational tools for painting. I collect a range of natural materials and add them to my marking tools. Because I work on heated metal or use hot wax pigment, tools also include natural bristle brushes, palette knives and silicone scrapers.

Stone is a challenging substrate for encaustic painting. I have developed my own formula to create sculptures on granite, sandstone and bisque-fired stoneware.

I paint encaustic monotypes on a heated (140F - 200F) aluminum plate and "lift" images onto paper or silk. Often, it takes multiple pulls to create the image I'm creating.

Seasonal changes in the flora and fauna of my environment, microscopic images, deep space photographs, and interactions between the ocean and land where I live all inspire my paintings.