Pour some wax on me.

Wax.

It's not just for dinner tables and fetishes - you can paint with it too!

Today was the Encaustic Painting workshop at the Studios of Key West. Otherwise known as how to paint with wax on griddles. So fun.

An ancient technique used by Egyptians and Greek people on mummy tombs. You have resin, colored wax that you push down on a pancake griddle. The griddle is your palate to mix and blend colors. In between that you can scrape and layer, collage and then fill in more color with oil sticks. Oh and don't forget the hot gun to blend or fuse (it's a fancy hair dryer).

It was a day to get dirty and my hands are now multicolored and will look great serving food tonight.

Got to explore all kinds of fun stuff and just play. My only complaint was when the power went out. It happened just as everyone turned on their respective hot guns and afterwards we were all crouched around one or two griddles. It still was fun though cause everyone got to know each other and ask questions about technique.

Tio continues to be an inspiration for me as you can see. When I was painting around his head from this picture of our trip to the Picos de Europa, a fellow student asked in a weird way: "You know that guy???"

I just laughed and said "Oh yeah." mostly thinking of our death defying trip up and down the mountain that day and then I couldn't stop laughing randomly the rest of the afternoon. Extreme sports should have a 'driving with a 92 year old relative at the wheel' category.

Someone else came by and said "He looks SO cerebral.". That caused memories to flood in of me and him arguing politics, about how one can eat bananas for a full year or why he can't drive on the sidewalk.

All in all a great day.

(If you want to see Tio in action - check out My Splog)