I was delighted to snag this botanical painting commission from Eco-Luxury Fur. It was going to New Zealand so we chose the Pōhutukawa, or New Zealand Christmas tree. Sadly, the the Pōhutukawa is under threat from the introduced common brushtail possum which strips the tree of its leaves. It’s a beautiful tree and I loved painting the brilliant red blossoms.

The watercolor painting was outlined in walnut ink and enhanced with Derwent watercolor pencils.

I mounted paintings to 4″x4″ wood blocks, sealed the surface with clear encaustic and the edges with black encaustic. Unfortunately, I ran into a little snag in production (I needed to create 20 of these puppies) when the finished pieces were delivered. Unfortunately, they ended up looking like tiles instead of little blocks of art.

I had 24 hours to fix the problem. Luckily, Mistress Muse kicked my butt and I taught myself how to use a table saw. I cut 20 more blocks affixed them to the back of the original work using tiny wood screws and sealed the edges with more encaustic wax. The wax actually sealed the seam beautifully. It was a stressful project but I learned some great new techniques for finishing art.