Jumping in off the deep end! Time for my Mississippi Art Colony retreat again. I leave early in the morning for about a 4 1/2- 5 hour drive to the camp near Utica, MS.

There will be no “comfortable” work to fall back on at this colony. I’m leaving all my canvases and acrylics at home. I’m only taking the encaustic waxes, and oils since you can extend colors with oil when you want/need to. I’m taking the 12 x 12″ Ampersand panels to work on and a few pieces of watercolor paper to prepare for oils if I get the notion to work with “just paint”. However, that won’t be as usual either since these oils paints are OLD and I have not used them much at all in 20 years. One of the reasons I use acrylic is because I need to layer and layering in oils is a long time process. Heck, while they dry, I forget where I was going. I am taking some collage papers as that was one of the two main reasons for wanting to try this medium. You can just embed them in the wax……the other reason, of course, is the wonderful, sensuous surface of the wax. Quality of surface is one of my real loves in painting.

I won’t even be able to work in my same spot at the camp either. Since I’m using the waxes I need to be outside to keep the fumes at bay. I should be able to pick up a few tips here and there as several colony people use encaustic. Heaven knows I need tips.

This is a good time for this since I don’t have any obligations to fulfill right now. I need to do something different, experiment a little, get out of my comfort zone………and now I’ll have 4 straight days with nothing else to do but paint and get together with good art buddies.

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