Lucy and Ethel Try Encaustics

You are full of good ideas today, but they may not be very practical. Your high ideals are the driving force behind your current creativity now, but they could also lead you astray if you let them. Nevertheless, this is not the time for idle dreaming. You must take direct action, even if you're not yet sure of your goals. They will grow clearer in time.

OK, Let me tell you about my 'Good Ideas' and 'High Ideals'. And the 'Astray' while I'm at it.

Today was my day of Encaustic with Laurie and I've really been looking forward to it. I went yesterday and mixed up a batch of encaustic medium with a huge pile of wax and resin. Unfortunately it overflowed the $4 frying pan I was cooking it in, but I stopped it in time and headed for WalMart where I bought a crock pot which is much more suitable. Back to the studio I went where I remelted and poured the contents into the crock pot as it liquified. When it was all done I put it into silicon muffin cups , cooled them enough to pop out, and refilled again. Now I am set for medium for the foreseeable future, and saved over half what it would have cost me ready made.

Two weeks ago I bought a small laser printer so I could make toner based images for transfer. The little thing was cheap and very good prints came out of it. I was printing everything I could get my hands on. Today we tried some bakery paper and it slid right through with some great clear images. We then tried lasertran and are ready to go with those. And I figured that my parchment paper would work like the bakery papers because I use it for release all the time. I cut a piece and taped it to a feeder sheet and pressed 'print'. In no time the feeder sheet came sliding through, it's tape undisturbed but with no parchment in sight. We both looked in every printer orifice and couldn't see a remnant to even pull out- it was firmly lodged way deep inside.

So, I removed one of the toner cartridges, just snapped it out. Then we ried to remove the next toner cartridge and with work we got that out too. The third cartridge wouldn't budge. We tried everything, and got toner all over both of us, the printer, the table, the floor- a freakin' mess. Laurie grabbed some wet paper towels to clean up some of it as we went (she was manning the computer looking for the 'help' pdfs or online chat or local repair shops to no avail. I was manning the screwdriver taking the thing apart but I removed what I had thougth were 6 essential screws but nothing came off!) More toner everywhere as we fiddled.

I went to wash my hands and there was a lake around my sink- a new leak had sprung and it was pouring out. Laurie found the shut off so we got the leak stopped but the water was everywhere.
drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip

splash

The printer problem was forgotten, the vats of hot wax were ignored, the mess in the studio was overwhelming from all our little project stations and my inability to find a solution to storing flat papers.

I opened a beer, left over from the Open Studios a year ago at this time, and a beer has never tasted so good. Meanwhile no problem has been solved. Laurie charged around cleaning up the mess, I supervised with my beer feeling frustrated and ineffectual. I don't know how to solve either problem.

The printer issue was MY problem for sending through paper it wasn't qualified or mature enough to handle. The leak is in an illegal sink and should never have been installed. Basically, in English, I am screwed on both counts. And I don't even have the pictures to illustrate the charade because I went off and left my camera charging.

Because I left it on by mistake over night. Sigh.