Hi, Everyone . . .I have two cool things for you today!

Thing One is a link to the most comprehensive catalog of encaustic artwork available, and it’s free to peruse online. It’s published by the Museum of Encaustic Art, which I described in my last post. The catalog is for the encaustic exhibition called 50 States/200 Artists.

Here’s the link – you will need Adobe Flash to be able to flip the pages.

Catalog Cover

Sample page with encaustic artists from New Mexico

Sample page with encaustic artists from Texas

My pal Michelle Belto and I are both in the section representing Texas – yay!!

If you can’t find something to love about encasutic art within this catalog of almost 200 pages, then exploring that medium just isn’t your thing.

So what if your thing is fiber art and stitchery? — well, hold onto your needles and watch this.

COOL THING TWO: THE AMAZING PATTERN WIZARD

Let’s say you want to embroider a jacket with a portrait of Frida Kahlo on the back (crazy, I know, but play along). You have a photo that you want to use:

So how do you figure out a diagram showing you how to cross-stitch this complicated design?? Just go to the Stitchboard Pattern Wizard. Upload your photo, and voila!!

It even gives you the numbers of the colors of cotton thread you’ll need to buy.

So I realize not everyone is going to run out and embroider this, but think of the possibilities of simplifying a color photo – you could do a beaded portrait of your cat using this kind of diagram – or your could paint it with dots!

Again, here’s that link: Stitchboard Pattern Wizard. 

I hope you enjoy these two cool things – I’m going back to the studio to work on a new video workshop – stay tuned!

And thanks for reading SHARDS.