Before I blogged , I painted, I still iron, unfortunately.

Today's ironing, see below for a much better option! Same technique, better results!!

Mostly I used to paint huge canvases,(now I have no space where I can be free, imagine all that open paint and a crawling bambino?, I'm thinking Jackson Pollock.) Encaustic wax  takes up less space, you can do it in the kitchen. All you need is card , special wax (melted bits of old dinner party candles or aromatherapy candles that the baby has been trying to eat don't do the trick) and an iron-but be warned- see caution below!! 

Mostly it produces abstract landscapes .

 It escapes me as to why all my wax ones  have a look of cornfields in golden sunshine. I always imagine that I paint what I hear in music, what I feel  or what is stirring in my soul at the time. Perhaps I was homesick for the farm land near where I grew up, where we used to walk the dog?

Abstract interpretation of Attersee lake,and surrounding mountains, Austria. (paint on canvas)
Another encaustic wheat field

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in encaustic wax.

Now this is what I call "ironing" encaustic wax painting is excellent fun. A small smear of coloured or pearlised wax is melted onto an old-fashioned flat iron and then splurged all over the card. If you have a bit of talent, you decide which colours and where, and how much splurging and smearing, and overlaying and intermingling. Clearly the hot wax colours melt and blend on the iron, and you have to be PDQ. 

It is not something I advise you to do at home with a baby in the house. The iron is hot, it has a cord. Babies love touching things they are forbidden to touch, and love pulling cords. Recipe for disaster. Life is too short to spend in casualty!!!!

Also being a mum you have half the time you used to have, despite getting up before dawn, and every job takes twice as long as it used to. My husband has 10 shirts a week to be ironed. I can't justify ironing wax onto bits of card instead!!!