Birdtober
(posted 09/30/2021)
I’ve been taking a bit of time off from creating new work, and I have just the project to get me back in the swing. I follow many artists on Instagram, dating back a few years when I first began to work in encaustic. One recently posted a challenge she calls Birdtober in which every day for the month of October she is asking everyone to create a work based on her list of birds. I don’t know her or a lot about her, but she is Andrea Holmes, her Instagram is @aholmesartstudio, and she lives in Texas. I’m thankful she has created the challenge and I’m eager to officially get started tomorrow!
I’ve done a few preliminary sketches this past week. I originally wanted to put them all on watercolor paper, but after a few tries, I realized the paper is too unstable, resisting in some areas, while completely soaking up the wax in others. Then, I had the brilliant idea of putting them all on bamboo cutting boards I picked up at the dollar store, but they are too big and I fear the size will be too difficult to finish a piece every day. I had some flat wooden circles left over from my previous ornaments series and figured that will be a great canvas to work on with these birds.
Stay tuned, I’ll be posting some progress photos over the next few weeks. If you want to follow along on Instagram, find me @rachel.rivasplata.