How Time Flies

Hey! Almost another full year! Hooray! This must be what time work slowed down last year. Awesome.

I have not stopped making stuff, that's for sure. As usual I go through phases and work on different stuff at different times. I'm currently making pendants out of resin and wasps that Frankenstein killed.

And now that I live out west, I have discovered the absolute joy of doing encaustics INSIDE THE HOUSE. Here are a few I have done.

Leather is still happening. I made some tissue boxes:

I bought a roll of clay-covered wire mesh that is pretty awesome. Made a bowl:

And whatever this guy is:

He started life as a failed whittling project and a lightbulb.

If I'm too tired after Factory Job to actually make anything, I try to put something in the sketchbook. Such as this:

And I have updated the shop a bit, and added some new products:

Dr. Craftenstein

And I haven't even photographed all the lino blocks I've carved and printed. So I have been staying busy! And once again I will try to post more often. Haha. We'll see how that turns out.

The West Is Best For Encaustics

As I mentioned in a previous post, I realize now why encaustic artists live out west. The temperature and humidity are perfect for the wax, and also perfect for the person standing over a hot grill. Not like sweltering Georgia! What a miserable swamp!!

My neighbor is an artist, so I told her I would drag her outside one day and let her play with all my encaustic stuff. She contributed a few boxes of jewelry and other items to embed in the wax, and we had a blast.

The Cowboy's ex-girlfriend/BFF wanted to come over, but then failed to mention it was also her birthday. No one gets away with that on my watch:

It's not much, but I only had like two days' notice. I did what I could.

I have a few complaints about that griddle, one of which is the cord is only about 2 feet long. Thus the power strip resting on the table right next to a major heat source. It's my fault because I went super cheap and that thing was like 12 bucks. I need to upgrade. I also have to snake an extension cord out of the back window of the house because there do not appear to be any outlets out there. I plan to look harder and then ask my landlord. Anyway, we managed. I made these:

More of the muskrat bones. They come in handy!

This poor dude is tripping ballz.

The next one involves some copper leaf, Japanese paper, and one of my neighbor's jewelry findings:

This one went to a weird place so I jammed some heart beads into it:

This one was slightly more successful:

My neighbor holding up the two pieces she made:

Ex-girlfriend/BFF is an art teacher, so she took to the medium like a fish to water:

We need to do this again. It was too much fun. I like to have the whole weekend though because it's a whore to set up. It's good to work out the bugs on Day One, let everything cool down and throw a tarp over it for the night, then go back out and resume the next day. This works out great because IT DOESN'T RAIN IN UTAH. The concept of leaving ANYTHING AT ALL OUTSIDE OVERNIGHT is completely foreign to me. Hahahah! Takes some getting used to.

Actually I need to keep Utah a secret....what I meant to say is that the weather is completely horrible all the time, please no one else ever move here. It's terrible and I hate it. Stay where you are. Thanks.

Okay Yeah, So.....

One year ago I nuked my whole life and moved to Utah. Why Utah, you ask? Mostly because my beloved New Mexico has zero jobs, and my company has a lab in Salt Lake City that I could transfer to. Why nuke my whole life, you ask? That's a way longer story and you'd have to buy me a lot of drinks to hear it. So let's just skip that.

Before I left, Beccula helped me have a massive yardsale, and a guy bought my whole inventory of sharts! He is a blessing!! I hope that guy either makes a killing, or has the biggest bonfire ever. I wish him all the best.

And I have not stopped making stuff. One bit of news is that after spending most of my life being terrified of watercolors, I bought a set of liquid watercolors and some paper at Smith's, which is the out-West version of Kroger, except kind of combined with a Target, because Smith's pretty much has EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT. So I've been doing some shitty watercoloring:

There's more, but as anyone that spends any time over here knows, March/April is Hell Month for birthdays, so I can't show the rest until after they're delivered. I painted a Manbaby:

A couple of guest checks:

I made this little guy with clay and a plastic bat and a doll head:

Painted some gourds like tittays:

And I've made some official N.U.T.S.A.C. Sharts such as this:

The flowers really make the piece. We will miss you, Nana Rat-Thing! I embroidered a couple of birthday cards:

And found out why so many encaustic artists live out west:

Because the wax melts and dries LIKE GLASS. Oh my god, if it wasn't 29 degrees outside right now, I'd be out in my yard slinging wax and putting in my resignation at work. This particular piece is the mighty Bonneville Salt Flats which is simply the bleakest, most magical place I've ever been in my life:

I beaded a bracelet too, but I can't find the pic right now because I'm still sorting through the rubble. I'll post that later. Maybe I won't wait a whole year!

I have been to Zion, Moab, the Mighty Salt Flats, fired an AK in the desert which was funner'n'hell, hiked up a waterfall, seen a gas station camel, eaten a lot of cheese curds, and drank a lot of 3.2% beer. Utah is weird, y'all. But so far it suits me. I think I'll stay here a while.

(Special thanks to PattiDee for the commemorative card accurately depicting my new apartment.)

Hello Etsy, Goodbye Soul

Friends, I held out as long as I could. The world finally wore me down.

Behold my Etsy shop.

There you will find some new sharts such as this:

and Wild Bill:

as well as many old "favorites."

I'm trying to cram as much assclownery into my shop page as possible while still meeting their requirements. Abusing the 'tag' feature will be a pleasure -- I should put "artisanal" and "curated" in every single listing. Ha. I need to remember to do that tomorrow. What else? "Burlap Pinterest Wedding" might get me some clicks.

Sigh. I'm in the belly of the beast now. At least I'm finally using that postage meter I bought like two years ago. The freedom of mailing random shit to my friends without having to visit the post office is pretty much a dream come true. #WINNING

Please visit my damn Etsy shop. Thank you.

Encaustics Kick Ass

I'm kind of backed up right now, and these are sitting on the desktop so I'll just dump them off.

Remember when they demolished my office building in order to turn it into a factory? First they vaporized all of the employees leaving only furniture behind. I shot these with my Instax:

CHAIRNOBYL 1 CHAIRNOBYL 2 CHAIRNOBYL 3 CHAIRNOBYL 4 SNACK ATTACK

A Companion Piece to the Chairnobyl series, and the one Ray of Hope in any office environment.

My sister-in-law stayed in our guest room this weekend and informed me that these are "creepy." I'm so desensitized by this point I can't even tell any more. So I was glad to hear it!

Hopefully I will have something more interesting to post next time. Fingers crossed!

And We're Puttin It On Wax

I'll just drop these off at the top to get them out of the way:

Legit Hotel Bathroom Art #1:

This is what I figure a quality establishment would have in the washroom. Not that I would know.

True Love:

Fairly substantial piece of my little Bubble's shed skin in the center of this one, DAWWWWWW!!

I Used To:

Sometimes a pretentious title is just the way to go.

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to share photos of my setup for encaustics. We'll start with the griddle.

I got this one at walmarks for like $17 or something, so cheap that I literally spent five minutes standing in the aisle just trying to decide if I should go ahead and get two of them. Sitting on top of it is a grill surface thermometer which I don't really pay attention to because I have my Super Awesome Ryobi Infrared one. The metal trays I got at goodwill. The one sitting on the griddle has plain R&F medium, the two on the table hold white and black wax. (Incidentally, behind the griddle on the shelf are my 800-year-old Airwalks that are now my "outside only" shoes. They still have stage blood on them from the first GWAR show I ever saw in the early 90s. Those shoes have seen some things, y'all.) Please note that I covered the tops of the worktable in my garage with sheets of cardboard that I stuck down with thumbtacks, because this is super messy work. Especially if I'm doing it.

The muffin tin I got at goodwill, and I used it to mix up small batches of the colored wax discs in the blue container. You take your R&F medium, mix in some pigment stick, then let it cool and pop it out of the tin. (Yeah, pop sounds real easy...actually you have to stick the tin on the griddle for a mo and then pop them out. And at least one has to be pried out because it is afraid to leave the nest.) Then when you want to use the dark red, you just take the red disc and rub it on the griddle to melt some off, and use a brush to paint the color where you want it.

The box in the front right is my pile of expensive pigment sticks. Just suck it up and get the R&F, don't waste your time with the inferior stuff. And the bright green thing at the top is my Super Awesome Ryobi Infrared Laser Thermometer, also expensive, but totally rad.

Here we have an empty bag of R&F wax pellets, heat gun, and a Bernzomatic propane torch which you can just straight up walk into a walmarks and purchase and they will just sell it to you with no question, god bless America. Your only challenge is to fend your way deep into the bowels of the walmarks and somehow find the plumbing section. Pack a lunch and say goodbye to your family.

At the back center of the table stands a brand new 2lb bag of R&F wax pellets, and a whole pile of pigment powders. I cannot remember who makes them so I'll report back later. On the right is a plastic bin with all sorts of natural bristle brushes, clay carving tools, various types of metal leaf, popsicle sticks, scrapers, a spoon, anything else I seem to need. Except booze, that's usually found on the left side near the griddle.

Hey, here's a fun tip: See the blue light coming in at the top of the photo, above the new bag of pellets? That's my garage door, which is open a couple of feet for ventilation purposes. The day I forgot to do that? I was nauseated for hours. HOURS. I probahbly hav brane damage.

So that's where I'm slinging wax. The encaustic products are not cheap, but pretty much everything else is. AND YOU GET TO USE A TORCH. AND A LASER. So I'm having a blast.

FYI, no one is paying me to shill this stuff, this is just what I use. And while you're piling tools and wax in your Amazon cart, go ahead and get this great book. I've got mine marked up with all sorts of post-its and flags because I plan to try every single technique.

Is this post long enough? I think I'm done for now.

Gift Update

You know how I like to make stuff, wrap it up, then wait years to deliver it? Here are a few things I just managed to unload.

These were my very first two encaustics that I made at the awesome workshop in Santa Fe last year. They were supposed to be the BFF's Xmas present...until I found out the wax was technically supposed to cure for six months. So they were rescheduled as a birthday present! And you know how 90% of my friends have birthdays in March & April? I literally have five birthdays within 17 days. I need new friends.

Anyway, these are a tribute to what makes America great!

1. The American flag

2. My BFF

And 3. The Hulk drinking a grape soda.

No argument, right? That was the episode where Ricky taught the Hulk how to use a soda machine. I still can't stop crying.

Incidentally, the American flag that I used as a background was made out of super cheap polyester that lit up like a candle when I waved the propane torch near it. If you don't want folks setting fire to the flag, maybe make it out of something less flammable? Just a thought.

Up next: Beccula bought a new house, Hooray!! I made her this cross stitch as a housewarming gift, but I'm a shitty friend so I didn't see her new house for several months despite the fact that she lives like three miles from me.

Credit to the Trailer Park Boys, and special thanks to the innerwebs for the ease in which this pattern came together.

And finally: Need more proof that I'm a shitty friend? PattiDee sent me this gorgeous box AGES ago. I took photos immediately and then put the box on my mantle, absolutely intending to thank her publicly as soon as possible. And now a third of 2016 is in the rear view mirror. Sigh.

Side, top and bottom:

And the inside. Drumroll please....

HOW I WISH I HAD THAT POWER. #lifegoals Thank you, PattiDee for this gorgeous box!!

In closing, and I know this will be an enormous shock: I still have two Xmas presents to hand out. I KNOW SO SHOCKING. So I can't expunge that pile yet. In the meantime, I'll be in the garage lighting flags on fire. Peace out.