Thursday 15 January 2015

Altered Art Encaustic Jewellery

As by now all the necklaces have reached their new homes (as I gave/sent them to some dear friends for Christmas) I can finally share some pictures of them with you.

I adore the encaustic art and workshops of Shari Replogle from Plays With Paper and have done two of her online workshops so far and loved them!
So when I recently found some old wooden and ebony dominoes at a flea market I knew immediately what I was going to use them for!

And as I feel a bit lonesome, useless and cut off today this might be a good time to write a post on my "more serious" art blog (as I love to call it). Do you know this feeling (well, I guess everyone knows and encounters it from time to time) when you question everything you do and have done so far? When you doubt that anything you make or have made has ever made an impact or been important to anyone else than yourself? And even if you know that these feelings might be caused by something as simple as PMS or fatigue, you just can't help it?

Well - obviously it is one of these days for me today and instead of endless sitting in front of my laptop and waiting for something coming my virtual way to distract me (or simulate that I am "in touch" with the world out there (or at least someone)) it might be better to stop waiting (as you know exactly that you are in a kind of "freeze mode" and the only one who can help you out of it is yourself) and act.

So here are some images of the encaustic pendants and I loved making them! They are rather small and I worked on two at a time - so I could add colour or detail to one while the other was cooling.



The first pair is made of wooden dominoes and I used bees wax that had some Dammar resin added to make it harder and more durable.




Colour was added by brushing on Pan Pastels and working them into the stamped in texture.




The second pair was made of two smaller ebony dominoes and I used some guilding flakes underneath which shows through at the edges mainly.




The hanging was made of a small piece of linen ribbon which was fixed to the domino with the hot wax. Once it had cooled down it turned into a stable loop I could attach some jump rings to.




I also used some crackle paint underneath the wax and some old book pages I had glued on to give the wax some tooth to hold on to.





To finish the pieces off I applied hints of guilding wax around the edges to add a little delicate sheen and highlight the beautiful textures.




I so enjoyed playing around and creating these! I hope you like them too!

xxx