Mixed, 24x18, unframed

My first memories of the mystery and glory of art are of visiting my grandfather's studio which smelled wonderfully of oil paints, linseed oil and Camel cigarettes. My parents were both creative, my mother made most of her clothes and my father painted as a hobby. I have made art all my life first with acrylics and then fiber art. It was only as a side-line after jobs and raising children. Since my retirement from nursing, I have concentrated on oil painting and encaustic. Oil paints satisfy me by being very malleable. I get my hands on them, move them around, mix on the canvas and create whatever I can imagine. I still rarely use brushes and normally do not work from photographs or sketches. In fact, I typically do not know what I’m going to paint until it gradually takes shape over time as I work. Many pieces are reworked over and over again until they become what they were meant to be. It’s a challenging process that I enjoy immensely. Encaustic provides a different sort of challenge yet similar. One does not fully control encaustic. I move paint around with fire, not my fingers. But it still has the element of surprise, taking on it’s own life, revealing it’s own secrets. It also can be worked and reworked. Unfortunately, this process has at times meant the demise of what was good in the hopes of better. Something that afflicts every artist I believe. The mystery of when a piece is finished remains a mystery.