I really love working with the bees wax. I got a little bit of time last night to start a new piece and tonight I got to complete it. (and start another). This is a 5x7 canvas board. Hopefully tomorrow night I can finish the project I started tonight, it is on a 6x6 canvas board.

I am finding that I really enjoy coloring with the water soluble oil pastels. I like the challenge of coloring in an image and keeping the colors soft and where I want them.

I also like the look of coloring an image and then laying another copy over top so the colors are muted underneath.

I wasn't sure the "swirly" paper would work as it has a bit of a shine to the finish but it turned out great. The colors became much richer.

I wanted to attach the asian charm with a bit of red ribbon but after digging around for about 15 minutes without finding any I just attached it with some wax. I now think the ribbon would have been a distraction so I guess I am thankful that I am not totally organized. :-)

More Bees Wax

Today is Sunday, laundry day at our house. Plus, tomorrow is my son's birthday. So, today I need to do the laundry, bake a cake and clean the house (company coming for the birthday ya know).

What have I done? I did do one load of laundry! I cleaned my desk (which I hadn't seen the top of since way before Christmas). And then I played with bees wax!

Here is the collage I created today. It took me a while to get started. Maybe the thought of all those chores was distracting me. But I finally got going and just played.

I originally had the girl stamped on tissue. I put her on the canvas, wanting the text to show through but the tissue was so transparent she got lost. I tried highlighting her hat with blue oil pastels, her outfit with yellow and her cheeks with pink. But she still did not show up as much as I wanted. So, I stamped her again on plain computer paper, hoping it would be translucent enough for the text to show but opaque enough that she would still be visible. To my surprise and joy, the text did show but so did the color I had applied before (I put the new image directly over the old one). So now she had the soft, rosy cheeks I wanted!

Bees Wax Collage Class

I took my class today and I had a BLAST!!!! Corinne Stubson was our teacher and she did a fabulous job explaining the techniques and possibilities and then she let us go to create to our hearts content. It was so much fun!

The smell of the melted wax is so relaxing, add to that the myriad of colored papers and supplies littering the table, the ringing of laughter in the air and the sheer joy of the artistic process and you have the makings of a wonderful day!

I had packed up a fair amount of papers and images to use in class. I had one preconceived idea but no clue what I would want to do for the other projects.

I knew I wanted to create a collage using pictures from my family. I have been wanting to do something with these for a long time and this seemed like the perfect time. I would be using new supplies and techniques with familiar faces urging me on. :-)

Below is my first bees wax collage. It is a 5x7 canvas board. I used a napkin for the background, xerox copies of old family pictures and images I stamped with permanent ink on white tissue paper.

The baby in the upper left corner is my maternal great grandmother. Next to her is my maternal grandmother. Besider her is my mom. And down in the lower left corner is me. Aren't I cute? LOL I even gave myself rosy cheeks. :-)

This is my next collage, again, a 5x7 canvas board. It started out with some fabric paper of letters and postcards. I used water soluble oil pastels to shade the images. But, after moving things around and playing for quite some time, I ended up purchasing some more images so I could find the focal picture of the small boy. He ended up covering up my great shading job! I wonder why I am so hooked on French images lately?

This is the third and final project I completed in the class. I used a 4" chipboard square as the base. I was just experimenting and now know that I want to gesso the cardboard before collaging. I wasn't too thrilled with the dark gray color showing through. I did add the red pastels to help hide it and I like the effect.

Here is a link to Corinne's blog so you can see the rest of the class. http://glitz-oh.com/journal/

I have been working on a lot of projects lately but have I remembered to photograph them before I mail them off?! No! LOL

Currently, I am working on a collage canvas project in the badbabyart group at yahoo. We each have a small canvas. We create the background and then mail it to the next person in the group (they are groups of 4). Each person adds a little bit and finally a finished piece of art returns home.

Here is the background I sent out.

I will post a picture of the finished work when I get it back. I am really excited about this! I have worked on one other canvas so far. (2 more to go). It seems everyone is having a great time and the hostess is talking of about starting a new round once this one is complete. I am pretty sure I will join again.

I am also working on a "Purses and Shoes" mini board book. The hostess sent out teeny 3" board books. I alter the entire book and then return it to her. She will swap out the finished books so I will receive someone elses finished project to keep as my own. I have some ideas but then I wonder how I will feel about letting it go. This should be a lot of fun though and I really can't wait to see what I get and also how the person who gets mine feels about it.

And finally, I am taking a class next weekend. Beeswax! I can't wait! I have wanted to learn wax collage for a long time (seen it in a lot of books) but didn't want to invest in the materials just to find out that I really couldn't figure out how to do it from pictures in books. So, along with jury duty this week, I am gathering up photos, paper scraps, ephemera and other supplies. I need to clean out my tote from the scrapbooking party I went to last month so I can carry it all.