Origami and Encaustic

This article first appeared in MixedMediaArt.net

Love our local thrift store, Helping Hands in Bentonville, AR. Found an origami kit that followed me home. Since I like to see how I can incorporate these types of treasures into my regular art (I think that's an oxymoron...my regular art :)

Anyway, I tried folding paper. MUCH harder than it looks. And, of course instructions were not the best. I had to fudge a few folds.

Next, I took 4" square tumbled marble tiles and coated them with a couple coats of plain encaustic medium (beeswax and damar resin, I make my own). Yup, visit all those flowers and bring the pollen home to my web. Shoot, my colony. Then, off to Madagascar to drain sap out of the damar tree. (I made that up, FYI)

Each gets a pour because I wanted to keep the three dimensional look of the folded paper. After two pours, fusing, I took a brush and made sure all crevices were filled. When cool, I scraped back as far as I could, again maintaining the 3-D look.

When I declared victory, each was signed...not an easy process on such smalls. Here is the group.

all images © V.N.Ross

Encaustic, collage on tumbled marble tiles.