I just updated my website to show some pieces I’ve worked on over the last couple years. This series is called Earth Meditators. These are encaustic paintings on birdhouse gourds. Some include mixed media (including natural materials) and have little figures inside.

Janus has two faces, since the god looks to the future and to the past. Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, doorways, passages, and endings. Doesn’t that fit the COVID-19 times we find ourselves in during 2020?

These are pretty labour-intensive to make. I grew the gourds a few years ago then dried them over the winter. The holes were cut during the next year and the dried inside pulp and seeds were cleaned out. Then I sanded both inside and outside. The gourd was then painted with encaustic gesso. Steev helped me make a mould and then create little meditating figures out of plaster.

The next step was the encaustic painting. As the encaustic is heated to fuse it, I have to turn the gourd while I use the heat gun to prevent all the wax from simply slipping off!

Some of the gourds have images on them which were printed on silk paper and applied to the surface. A few others have natural materials like feathers and nests.

Encaustic painting is impervious to moisture, so it seals and preserves natural materials like birdhouse gourds. The ancient Greeks used it to decorate their ships.

Head on over to my Earth Meditators Series page on my website to see more.