Stratalicious, Baby!

Squam Workshop #1

After arriving in New Hampshire for SAW the first day to sunshine and 80 degree weather the second day started out rainy and a bit gray. The mood soon brightened as I walked into the Sugar House and Mary Beth Shaw got us going in her workshop called "Stratalicious, Baby!" How could you not want to take a class with a fun name like that! 

Sugar House aka "Sugar Shack"

With great music playing in the background we watched as she demonstrated creating a “rock like” design on Clay Board. Mary Beth’s easy going style made it feel comfortable for us to jump right in and give it a try ourselves. Time to get messy adding texture and color! I was really looking forward to trying the Wood Icing that I read about in her book Flavor for Mixed Media.

The mornings start on my 2 panels.

In the afternoon we tried some encaustic techniques by adding more layers with beeswax, clear and with dry pigments mixed in. I liked seeing how you can work oil paint into crevices scratched in the wax surface.  

Can you believe these started out as the demo pieces for the class? 

by Mary Beth Shaw

It was so much fun working on this experimental piece. I’ll be able to look back at it and remember all that I learned and how much fun the eight of us had in class that day.

One of my "finished" panels