mhenning1

My journey with creating art began about 10 years ago. I was invited to take an art class from a local artist and that was the beginning of this wonderful part of my new life as an artist. I expanded my education with, online classes, reading many books, researching the Masters and lessons from a local artist which broadened my outlook and sparked a talent which was never explored. I have studied in Spain and Tuscany with two wonderful artists. Every medium that I work with seems to push me further in my interest to keep learning and painting. The creative process is an intrinsic part of my life that I cannot live without. My influence comes from water scenes, natural formations, and natural colors. I also love the free feel of using inks for scraping and mark making on my canvas or paper to create abstract shapes and patterns. Using different mediums in my art, i.e., molding paste, handmade papers, glazing mediums help to bring my painting to life. My tools are tree branches, skewers, shells and many other household objects. My experimentation with creating encaustic art started at a class in Snow Farm, Mass. in 2017 where we were taught to create encaustic collagraphs. I continued at my home studio where I learned to prepare the surfaces, add the wax in different colors and fuse each layer with a heat gun. I found the process to be cathartic and inviting. I spent a good deal of the winter of 2017 experimenting with this ancient form of art making and realized that the possibilities were endless.