Spending a week learning the art of encaustic with Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch in Wanganui (Fibre Arts New Zealand) was a fantastic experience of experimenting a totally new art medium using hot wax in combination with oils, pan pastels, charcoals, inks – basically anything you can imagine to make marks, plus the addition of fabrics, shellac, plaster and tar.

Back home, I couldn’t hardly wait to get a few basic tools and materials to set my little encaustic space in a corner of my studio, which guess what – took over a big part of my studio in no time…

I found I am more drawn to materials like concrete, plaster, tar and rust that can create beautiful textures, and even applied to flat supports like ply wood or paper the final look feels three dimensional through lots of layers of chosen materials.
These are some pieces I did in the workshop

Not that this enough, I signed in the 100 day project, an independently run event of repeating a creative task over (guess) 100 days. Because encaustic is such a wide field I limited myself to a square of paper (as canvas) 13cm x13cm using rust, concrete, tar, plaster and some oil sticks. A perfect way of daily material exploration!

These are some of my first works, see more here!

I am happy to run a few more weaving classes. New addition: making puti puti (flowers) from harakeke. Small groups for best learning outcome!

When it comes to natural dyes, it is sometimes hard to get a bright and strong red colour. The main sources for a range of reds are madder root and cochineal. I had this jar of cochineal sitting in my studio for about two years with the intention to use it one day. That day has eventually come.

Cochineal is a beetle which lives on cacti in Middle and South America. Only the female body (!) gives the dye when it is dried out and pulverized.  The substance is called carmine and can also be found in food and cosmetic industry. In the past centuries cochineal was a main dye source for red dyes, today its often used by artists and artisans in their work, who are helping to keep this traditional knowledge alive.

dried cochineal beetles

in pulverized form

For my dyeing session I prepared a couple of silk and wool fabrics, using the itajime shibori technique (clamps).

the dye pot

Here are some images of the finished pieces, the colours raspberry like on the wool, a bit more pink on silk.

I wonder why I haven’t used this amazing dye source before, I am pretty sure this source will be one of my favorites in the future.

These are two new workshops I am happy to offer in my studio, lots of learning, lots of fun!

I was always a bit nervous with indigo and had a few failures, trying to make a working vat. Discouraging every time. Not this time. I just gave it another go, using Michel Garcia’s organic vat, using indigo, lime and fructose crystals. And succeeded! I didn’t want to believe it but it really worked and its magic! How the fabric turns from white to green, teal and eventually to blue. The more often the fabric is dipped into the vat, the darker the blue shades that can be achieved.

I also love the idea that the vat can be used over a period of time, but it needs to be a bit looked after, get fed, stirred and if necessary revived!

I used a couple of shibori techniques (folding, clamping and binding) to achieve simple yet very beautiful patterns.

Dyeing in progress, the teal colour will magically turn into dark blue.

 
This one is made with black walnuts bound into the silk and resisted with rubber bands.

Bound with gum nuts, it event took a bit of the colour!

Over dyeing a silk scarf, rust dyed before.

 
This scarf is eco dyed with eucalyptus leaves, then twice dipped into the vat.

And my new pair of cotton indigo socks. Who said socks are boring x mas presents…?