Two new wax paintings

Here are two scenes of a California Creek I visited a few years ago. Larger, top one, is 9x12 and painted with a combination of oils and wax or encaustic. Other is 5x7 done solely with the wax medium. The wax lets me get a texture and polished gloss that I can't do as well in oils. I need to experiment with more mediums in oils to get some gloss as I go along to balance the colors better versus waiting for a final varnish coat.

Journey painting

Here's another view of the new work. You can see I'm smiling because it's done.....

Journey work completed

I've finally completed my work based on Spencer Wells' book, Journey of Man. The work is done in encaustic, or wax, and is 28x40, and comprised of 2,210 small figures to represent the 50-60,000 years, or about 2,000 plus generations since all men had the same ancestor. It's a fascinating story, traced through our DNA by Wells. He also shows the migrations out of Africa for mankind. The attribute we call race is really a modern construct, based on exposure to sun depending on where we migrated to, and genetic isolation and mutation. We are all brothers at the beginning of this journey, yet find race a reason to hate each other. On top of that we've added religion and nationalism to our original tribal conflicts. It seems as we move forward, we find more reasons for hate. I tried to express our relationships and love in this work.

New small landscapes

Have been busy with a new long term art project, involving 2,200 small images so only a few landscapes lately as also travelled visiting relatives. Only did carry on so found I could fit the 5 tubes of paint I needed, red, yellow, blue, white, and gel, into the little baggies allowed for liquids on airplanes. It's a good exercise to limit yourself to just the three primaries.

The larger project has taken me from mid-September to now at about an hour a night whenever I've been home. Work is in encaustic and tedious so an hour is about all I can do at a sitting. Will post it when I'm done, about Thankgiving week I hope.

The landscapes are all 5x7 done in oils and are various scenes from Hawaii, Seattle, and Oregon. The images are:

Green Lake Snow

Magnuson Park Road

Kauai Beach

Oregon Haystack Rocks