handmade: encaustic cosmos

This is an encaustic painting of a Cosmos flower from our 2011 garden.

Our gardens have come to mean so much to me. I've learned valuable lessons about beauty, hard work, creation, teaching children, patience, and much more through our time gardening.

I enjoy taking pictures of the flowers, and last year I became increasingly captivated by the beautiful details of the blooms and posted many of them here on the blog. I decided it would be quite a treasure to have a painting of one of the blooms.

I summoned the courage to ask a dear friend if she'd be willing to create an encaustic painting of the Cosmos picture I took (I had never asked anyone to do something like this) and Amanda said yes, that she was up for this challenge.

As you can see, this is an amazing painting. Encaustic painters use wax for painting. Isn't that interesting? The background is made up of encyclopedia pages, dipped in wax. The flower and green background were then added with wax, created by Amanda, and colored to her specifications. Then the word "joy" was added to the bottom left corner, a piece of paper also dipped in wax. You can see additional, more detailed photos on Amanda's post.

My family was equally impressed with this piece of art when I brought it home. It hangs on a wall near our dining room and kitchen, and can be easily viewed from the living room which means I am able to enjoy it frequently throughout my day.