Beeswaxing Lyrical

Today I am ashamed to admit I slept in till 10am! Still can't get over that...can't remember when that last happened...years and years...or maybe when I was sick once.....so got up and then did more art all day long...in between being a child taxi driver about 4 times.

The mission today was to complete my Suziblu painting with the layer of beewax, and maybe some more bellies. On the left here is the scan of the whole piece, but the closeups below show a lot more detail that the scan misses.

I still have the other 2 to do and hopefully get on the wall before the end of the week to make a nice display of 3 pictures together. Not sure where I will put them up yet. The colours kind of match the kitchen. But is this kitchen art??

So I'm a bit sad that the delightful Suziblu class is nearly over, and the final stage is to drippy beeswax from a quilting iron pressed against a block of wax onto the painting and then smoosh it around a lot. I am not sure why we do this (information overload) but I think it helps the collaged elements look like they are all part of the same layer. It also gives a slightly blurry dreamy, soft-focus quality to the piece depending on how much wax you use...oh and of course you can create texture deliberately too.

I like the idea of gouging out some wax, and putting more paint on top of that, but I won't give that a go until I have all 3 of my paintings done, and then if they need more grunge they will get that treatment as a family.

So what changes have I made since the last picture a few posts back? I sanded the hair (didn't like it at all) and took out part of an eye and the forehead at the same time! LOL. Also damaged an upper thigh and created a poxy-flaky knee, but it all add to the charm..at least that's what I'm trying to believe.

I stamped the hair with the postage stamp fromWords Plate 4.

You can see from this face closeup the texture from the wax.

While I was waxing, I decided I really wanted to add some watch parts. I have used these as embellishments loads over the last 8 years, but suddenly, when you use watchparts these days, you get to call you piece 'steampunked' so, my chicky is an on trend steampunked chick as far as hair and dress goes anyway!

This closeup shows the poxy knee. The upper thigh got a healthy dolloping of wax to hide her flaking skin.


The birdcage got a vintage typewriter key as an embellishment, and as I felt the birdcage was looking too cutesy, I sanded, then sprayed with walnut ink which sank into the sanded bits, and ran a wash of gold- green paint over the top. Now it blends in better with the beeswax over the top.

I tried the natural beeswax first, but that was too brown for some areas, so I switched occasionally to the unbleached for the face and areas that I wanted to lighten up a little.

So now you have seen the whole thing, I shall show the other pics once they are finished later in the week.

An interesting week ahead. School day trips, discos, leavers assemblies and parties every day. The builders are in on Tuesday to start a 3 week job of replacing all the windows in the house and re-build a bay window in the lounge.

We have Bruce and Jean arriving from New Zealand on Saturday to stay for the weekend. They are here for a few months so we will see them again in between their trips to France, Scotland etc during their stay, and we hope to have a week with them in Wales late August. Mark and Bruce used to go out fishing for malin back in the day in the Bay of Plenty (NZ), now Bruce runs chartered fishing trips North of Auckland...I can see mark is going to get homesick this coming weekend!

Have a great week. I am off to clean the house, feed the kids, and think about which urgent washing/ironing needs doing ready for this week...I have totally neglected all these duties over the weekend! Who cares!

Leandra