More encaustic...

Just wanted to show you the beautiful simplicity of the materials needed for encaustic painting. Pure beeswax, Damar resin crystals, a little carnuba wax for hardness, and pigment. Love it. Half the fun and intrigue for me and making art is the mixing and getting to know the raw materials and the recipes that have been unchanged for centuries. I love just looking at the chunks of raw ingredients sitting around in old jars and sacks and measuring and experimenting with it all. There is something so beautiful about elegantly simple natural materials. Beeswax. Tree resin. Ground earth pigments. Perfection...

I think I'm going to try and compile a good listing of link to art supplies. (not just in random posts that you have to sift through). I usually shop around a lot on line before I buy, looking for the best info and prices on everything. It will take me a bit, but I will do it!

good basic encaustic supplies and good prices...
http://www.swanscandles.com/store/encausticsupplies.html

ENCAUSTIC, ENCAUSTIC, ENCAUSTIC!!!

OK, time for some pictures...



Started playing with encaustic and I absolutely love it...it's my new best friend.

Craft fairs done!

Met some really great people at the craft show yesterday in Sellwood, so that made the slow sales a bit better. The really great thing is now I can pack away all the crap that you need for the craft shows that's been taking over my house the last month and a half! Now that I have all the stuff to set up temporary shop, there's really less of an excuse to not do it again when they pick up in the spring. The sales on Etsy have been great because of the holidays, and I'm trying to offer gift wrap and direct shipment for those who still need to send their gifts elsewhere - we'll see if anyone takes me up on it - I hope so b/c I've got some cute pearls and snowflakes with sticky backs that I'll get to play with if someone orders it.

Cobra my a*s

Sorry - no pretty pictures this time...I'm pissed...

Boy, you know, it would have been nice if I actually had received any kind of notice that the cobra subsidy ended last month.
I just had a doctor's appointment today (meaning I've "used" my insurance already this month)and came home and opened my insurance bill and it was 3 times what it had been. Like it wasn't bad enough that it got subsidized, but we didn't hear about it for 3 months, so when we were informed, we still owed for the 3 months we didn't know about, if we wanted to take the subsidy. (Hmmmm.......Maybe that's why not huge amounts of people took up the offer - who has hundreds of dollars laying around when you are unemployed - for 3 months of something you can't use - I used my meager savings thinking it was the "right" thing to do). So I paid out almost $500 for coverage I didn't know I had and was useless to me, just to get the subsidized rate... How much does that kick up the "subsidized" rate? It's kind of important to let people know about these things....oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, we live in the last first world yet socially third world country in this world.