Jody, Maribelle, and Baby Jonas

This painting has a history.

I had just finished most of the painting of Jody and Maribelle, and had set it aside until I could work on it again. Glenn was home from knee surgery, and had taken it off the desk for some reason. When I came home from work, I found it on the floor, and it had two rips in it and some creases.

I guess all artists have times when they struggle between their relationships and their artwork....this was one of them.

I took it to class, where we had a "can this marriage/artwork be saved" session. Sandy came up with the idea of disguising parts with rice paper. We looked through her very interesting stash, and found this one. I decided to do the entire background in rice paper, cutting carefully around the figures and applying it with mat medium. I also pulled some of the threads of the paper into their hair.

After seeing the finished product, Ginger suggested I thank my husband for ripping my painting, since it forced me to find an alternative solution, which ended up better than my original plan. I'm not planning to thank him, but I didn't kill him either.

Barn Wax Batik

I took a wax batik class from Sandy Maudlin Nov 13 and 14. I'd had this picture in mind to do for a long time. It is my sister, Judy's, barn that you can see from Mom and Dad's back door.

I've done batiks several other times (I counted about 8 or 9), but I forget a lot of stuff in the process, and Sandy has added some things to make it better. I am pretty happy with the way this turned out.

One thing I do differently, is that I don't use ink for the last part, but a very dark mixture of watercolor paint. And I am more careful about applying it between the cracks, so I don't overdo the black crackling look. If I don't get enough on, after all the wax has been ironed off, I crinkle parts in my hand, and just put black over the tops of the crinkles until I have the effect I want.