Hot Air

I got a new toy yesterday. It's a strange little hairdryer, shaped more like a crafting heat gun than something you'd use for drying your hair. I'm hoping it will work for creating blown effects in wax. I've had some success with an ordinary hairdryer but really there is too much air and not enough heat.

I've also tried using the crafting heat gun but that has too much heat and not enough air. I'll probably end up buying a more specialised heat tool, but for now it's fun to experiment with what I already have.

This is an example of work done with a hairdryer:


I'll post results with the new little gizmo later and compare the two

Two Sales

It's sooo rewarding when someone likes your work enough to want to buy it.

These are the two that recently went to new homes:


Both are from my 'Spiderweb' ACEO series and are my first sales of encaustic art, as mentioned previously.

Someone told me I ought to put pictures of them on here, so here they are.

ACEO upsizing

Still on the subject of the ACEO, and as an example of upsizing to hang on the wall, here's one I recently framed.

The frame itself measures approx. 9.5 x 10.5 inches with the inner mount being around an inch larger than the ACEO in the centre. I gave the image two mats, one white and one pale green, and glued the whole thing into the centre of the back board.

Oh, and the frame cost a couple of quid from a charity shop. It housed a rather grubby looking piece of cross stitch which was quickly and easily removed, but the frame and mount are clean and presentable.

Bargain!

ACEO Fascination

ACEOs are fascinating me at the moment.

For a long time before I started encaustic art dabbling I made greetings cards, and it was this interest that first introduced me to the idea of creating miniature works of art in the form of an ATC (Artists Trading Card). At first I couldn't see the point. Why spend hours fiddling about with something that measures just 2.5 by 3.5 inches and isn't even a card you can send to someone? You couldn't even sell these tiny little cards because the whole point of them was that you made them to swap with other ATC creators.

I just didn't get it.

A while later I came across the expression ACEO (Art Cards, Editions and Originals), and this made a little more sense because at least they could be offered for sale.

Still, such tiny little things. What were people supposed to do with them? And yet the more I delved into the art/craft world, the more I realise they were everywhere.

Fast forward a couple of years, and encaustic art enters my life. Suddenly, the delight that is the ACEO dawns on me:

• Restrictions and boundaries: The size is strict. If it isn't 2.5 by 3.5 inches, it's not an ACEO. This in itself, although it sounds limiting, gives a kind of freedom. By ruling out so many other possibilities the artistic field is narrowed and the focus is tightened.
• Challenge: I can only liken it to writing. It often takes far longer to write a really short story than it does to write a longer one. So too with art. Working on such a tiny area and trying at the same time to make the picture mean something, say something, have some aesthetic appeal is quite a job. With encaustic art, the iron is bigger than the picture so it's easy to obliterate something you wanted to keep.
• Versatility: Store it in a collector's album, hang it on the wall, post it to a friend as a gift, call it a topper and put it on a greeting card - it's small enough to do just about any job you'd want a picture to do.
  
• Affordability: We all have a sense of the value of the 'one-off', the 'original'. To own something that you know is the only one in the world, especially in today's mass-produced world, is special. Original art is beyond the means of most people. Including me. But just about everyone can afford an ACEO.

And quite apart from those practical realisations, they're just so much fun - and maybe that's all the reason that's really needed!

The Pleasure and the Pain

Can you have too much of a good thing?

Not only do I get my first ever blog comment this morning (Pat of On a Whimsey - thanks for dropping by), but I also made my first ever encaustic sales on ebay. Two encaustic works are on their way to a new home.

No, not the little fish below, he's still swimming around looking for someone to love him, but a couple of ACEOs in my Spiderweb series. As I look at them sitting here on my desk there's a part of me that doesn't want to part with them. But then again, to think that someone actually wants to buy them is just amazing.

I wonder if other people feel like this about selling their work - totally torn between the excitement of someone swapping their cash for something you've created and the feeling that this is your baby and belongs at home with its creator.

I'm used to the pain versus pleasure aspect of selling my writing and seeing my words in print, but this parting-with-artwork-pain is something I didn't expect.

Plus I worry that my buyer will get the paintings and hate them. Ack!! Sometimes I need a good smack.

PS - Just to balance things out and make sure I don't get too cocky this morning, a rather large council tax bill just landed on my doormat! Talk about thumping back down to earth!!!

Scry Fish

I haven't posted here for a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating more encaustic little pictures.

The scry aspects of encaustic artwork are fascinating. Mine usually come about by happy accident, because I've been trying to do something else and it hasn't worked to my liking. Frustration takes over and the iron goes down with a plonk over the whole thing. That's the beauty of working with encaustic wax. A displeasing picture can be very quickly and very satisfyingly blotted out.

Sometimes a little miracle happens. I can't remember what this picture was originally supposed to be but it certainly wasn't a fish. He only made his appearance when I lifted the iron of destruction.

The painting is an ACEO, so it only measures 2.5 by 3.5 inches. He's up for sale at the moment on ebay.