Handmade Encaustic Greeting Cards

The other day, I looked at a piece of encaustic art that was one of my very first.  I remember (it was 8 years ago) that I had a terrible time learning this wonderful art.  There was one book by Joanne Mattera and it was the only thing that I could find to learn from.  So, I experimented and kinda learned by doing. No, that was it.  I did learn by doing.

I am happy to say that now there are tons of good books, some great dvds (some not so great) and the popularity of encaustic is growing all the time.  I love it.  I taught encaustic art for a while on line, but I do tend to be honery (I think that is a Texas word, or at least southern).  I just do the best best job that I can do and don't take criticism well unless it is constructive and the person knows the art themselves.  So, I don't teach for anybody else anymore.  And, I am not too crazy about parameters.  Maybe most of it was just that online teaching from other people's site wasn't for me.  Anyway, I get really honery when I don't work with wax for periods of time.  And, so much of the time it is just too too hot in Texas.  So, I miss a lot of the year.

Okay, I am long winded here.  But, I did do a chapter in my friend Pam Carriker's book Art At The Speed of Light.  The book has been out for a time, but it is great.  Get it.

Missing being able to work in the heat, I was looking to branch out and find out some different techniques.  I have found two that I am crazy about.

One, I will talk about later.  But, for now, I have become addicted to doing encaustic art greeting cards.  I love them.  I have done a dozen for my own home.  It is completely addicting and I go to sleep thinking about it.  But, again, zero information.  There is a lot of information about doing landscapes using an encaustic iron and there were several books, which I got.  But that wasn't my style.  I want to do flowers.

So, I am studying flowers, looking at books of watercolor art flowers and acrylic flowers.  Plus, gardening books.  A lot of what I am doing is semi-abstract. But, I think it isn't too hard to tell what kind of flower I want to show.  I believe that there is one other artist who is doing this type of work, and that is it.  She is amazing, I love her work.  But, I am having so much fun taking this farther and yes, I am offering some for sale.  Even though, I have started to remove them cause I can't bear to part with them.
Here are a few.  Remember, they are done with an iron.  A small iron, yes, but am iron.  So, there is a lot of serendipity that takes place.  But, it is so fun.  Just use glossy cardstock of a good quality and you can use a woodburning tool also but you do need one of those rheostats or it starts smoking.