Sunday, February 13, 2011

More Wolves... I am dancing now!

Yesterday I painted the gray wolf portrait, but today I wanted to incorporate the wolf theme into landscapes. I worked small which allowed me to have more fun and enjoy quicker results. Now I need to decide which of these will make the best gift for my niece, which would you choose?

"Gray Wolf Howling", 2.5 x 3.5 encaustic



"Brown Wolf", 2.5 x 3.5 encaustic



I always float and mount my small encaustic works on watercolor paper, sign with my chop stamp instead a traditional signature, and put the work into shadowbox frames. This protects the wax and helps create even more dimensionality (* the brown wolf image below is truer color than the image above).




Yesterdays work below, "Gray Wolf", 6 x 6 encaustic painting; this does not need to be framed because it is painted on a 2 inch deep cradled birch panel, I just need to wire it.



And one last image to share... I was a substitute teacher on Friday in the high school art department and what a pleasure to be with students that were there by choice busy working on assignments, although very few of them needed my help. I spent most of my time doodling with paints in between classes and decided to share one of my paintings with you. If I worked at the high school full time, I would insist on a student grade watercolor paper. The students are painting mostly with acrylics and tempera, and using an inexpensive sketch paper with paints. I used a tray of watercolor in square blocks, the same kind distributed in elementary school, then added india ink for outlining and thin permanent marker for details.





7 comments:

  1. My vote is gray wolf howling. These are all great.

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  2. Give your niece "Gray Wolf Howling" and send me "Brown Wolf". :-) I absolutely love it!

    -Don

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  3. Good golly but these are all amazing works of art, even the one done on the school's paper. As to the gift for your niece? Well, hard choice to make. I love the one you did yesterday of just the head and I really love Brown Wolf too.

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  4. Robin, you've been very busy! I like all of them but I think 'Grey Wolf Howling' is my favorite.
    Also, your painting done at school turned out well. Amazing that you did that using poor quality materials. I agree that kids need better materials but the way the budgets are going, I don't think that's going to happen. The high schools here are scrambling for ways to get more money for the art program because they just passed a ruling that no kids can be asked for a materials fee for an art course because there might be someone in the class that can't afford it. Of course, in the past, there has always been that situation and the boosters took care of it but now with all of our political correctness in our society, we can't even ask so everyone loses. Very sad....

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  5. I like all of them, but my favorite is the brown one. I guess it goes along with "The Peekaboo Principle”I wrote about in my blog:O)

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  6. Thank you everyone for your input. Here is the thing, I shared these works with my sister in law and she is telling me the gray wolf portrait would make her daughter happiest... sobeit. I thought having the wolf in a forest with trees was more of a story. In the meantime, I may start painting landscapes incorporating wildlife, this could be the start of something new for me.

    Nancy, I have to tell you I was the art sub in the middle school today and was pleasantly surprised to see watercolor paper in the supply closet! Of course I used it (sparingly) when I decided on a lesson plan. Either way, the arts are the first to be cut back in the public schools and personally I think that is part of the problem with today's youth... not enough art/art therapy being used as a way of expressing what words can not say. Sigh.

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