to spend a class with dame judy wise is like your favorite memories of your kindergarten teacher. she is gentle and kind, a soft place to land. and each morsel of information she gives you makes you FALL in LOVE with art again, golden nuggets of revelations she passes out like snacks and naptimes from yester-year. my first class was called translucent layers, combining collage work with encaustics. i love me some collage, but this took it to a whole new level. pick a central figure from a magazine, or paint it yourself, but do it on watercolor paper. bedazzle and embellish to make it your own, then cut out and mount onto hardboard painted black.

continue to build your collage. then paint it in by scumbling 2-3 different colors but leaving a black halo around your image.  these simple steps have added a whole new element to my work.  it felt so incredible to creating beautiful things again!  and to look around the room and realize i'm literally surrounded by i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.y. talented women.  bliss.

apparently i'm prolific... or a little ADD because i cranked out two:

and this one was funny. i found this gorgeous woman from the anthro catalog and just had to use her! i cut her out of the catalog and flipped her over to glue her to my watercolor paper and i fell in love with the image on the back.  i just couldn't go back to her real face.  so i traced her face to the other side and painted her in; so happy with the results.

after you get the collage done you paint a thin layer of hot wax onto the painting, then use a heat gun to seal all of the elements in.  from there you can put gold leaf or oil pastels over the wax, but i felt very pleased with what i had accomplished with the first steps.

so love judy wise.