Ceracolors, water soluble encaustic paint

I have a brand new workshop available with four dates and a guest artist, Heather Gentleman. Heather was my encaustic teacher and in 2007 after a few months of learning with her, gave me a wonderful opportunity to exhibit and use her studio and gallery at the Distillery. That opened up so many doors and became the portal to a very fulfilling art career. I am honoured to have Heather as a guest teaching artist at Second Door Studio this fall. 

Heather will be teaching a mixed media class using ceracolors, which is an emulsified wax paint that comes straight out of a tube and requires no special tools, ventilation or heat. It has its own unique properties but can replicate some of the qualities of oil painting, watercolour and encaustic. I have been experimenting with the medium myself and have attached photos of my latest work featuring ceracolors.

I also offer the paints at Second Door Studio with a 10% discount to students. Dates for the workshop are October 14, 15 and November 11, 12. Come for one day or the entire weekend. 

My regular workshops are available on other weekends...all of the workshops can be viewed on www.joyapaul.eventbrite.ca.

To register for a workshop for

                                                  Oct 14 click   www.ceracolors1.eventbrite.ca
                                                  Oct 15 click   www.ceracolors2.eventbrite.ca
                                                  Nov 11 click   www.ceracolors3.eventbrite.ca
                                                  Nov 12 click  www.ceracolors4.eventbrite.ca

If you would like to register for two days, contact me at info@joyapaul.com to receive the discounted amount. You will also receive a $15 gift certificate toward any Ceracolor product purchase at Second Door Studio for registering for two days.  This will be emailed to you upon registration and payment. 

To purchase ceracolors, please visit my ceracolors page

Samples of my most recent paintings using ceracolors: 

Creating from the Soul

Last December I met Corrina Choe who is a holistic healer, yogi and meditation practitioner...we formed an instant connection. I knew that I had a message to share, to empower and inspire others and Corrina had a similar message. We have a lot in common such as our struggles in the past and finally coming to a place of peace and realizing our life's purpose. While I am not a yoga aficionado, I appreciate its benefits. I have been in the practice of meditating for some time now, but as I have shared, meditation naturally occurs when you are in the creative process and that is a daily practice for me. 

We were compelled to design a workshop as a collaborative effort that would bring mindfulness, yoga, meditation and art together. The workshop exceeded my expectations! The art that flowed out of the participants reminded me how much creativity connects a person to their inner light, to their soul. This was after being relaxed with yoga, essential oils, a head massage and meditation. We call it the Goddess workshop as we learned about attributes of ancient goddesses in order to bring forth our own divine essence. Corrina's wisdom and energy was enchanting. I look forward to many more collaborations with this beautiful soul seeker.  

If you are interested in learning about the next Goddess workshop please contact me! 

PanPastels and Encaustic....the medium that changed everything!

I consider myself to be a mixed media artist, not strictly an encaustic painter. Though I use molten wax as my primary medium, I have more than one medium I use to create my art...oil paints, oil pastels, image transfers, collage, alcohol inks...but the one discovery that excited me the most was seeing these beautiful colours that were so vibrant, laid out perfectly in little pans like a super charged eye shadow ! I had to look at them closely when I first saw saw PanPastels in the art store. Hmmm, pastel reformatted to be used like paint!

Like a kid in a candy store, the art supply junkie in me wanted to gobble them all up.....I couldn't wait to try these with the encaustic.  Much to my surprise, the pastels were a PERFECT fit for my encaustic work. I was hooked!  The pastel paint glides on and is so blendable and with the tools you can buy specifically for PanPastels you can paint in fine details and lines. I am able to create entire backgrounds in these vibrant colours with ease. I still use encaustic paint in layers, but to a much lesser degree and my students LOVE PanPastels with encaustic. 

This snowy owl painting was painted almost entirely with PanPastels on top of the encaustic. The owl itself was then painted with oil paints and PanPastels.

For the making of Mr. Snowy, you can click here 

This video demonstrates how I used PanPastels to draw and then paint a bird...I created an encaustic background withpan pastels with stencils. With the use of the PanPastel fine line tool, I did the underpainting of the bird. This was one of my first experiments with pan pastel.

What I love is the ability to paint entire backgrounds with the PanPastels. A little  goes a long way.  It can be used as a way to touch up your paintings with a little color, or it can be used as a primary source of color for your entire painting...you can apply wax over it and the pigments will glide and mix in with the wax or you can gently drop the wax on the surface to leave the pan pastel unaltered. So many wonderful ways to work with this beautiful medium! Thank you PanPastel!!