Just Breathe by Jen Matott

Today we have the super talented Jen Matott joining us! She's a super cool gal with some insane talent and I'm totally pumped to have her on the blog.

Her Blog

My name is Jennifer Matott and I'm a mixed media artist and scrapbooker from outside of Syracuse, NY. I have been scrapbooking and creating mixed media art for over 20 years with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Science in Art Education.

Mixed media allows me to get creative with imagery and still create a 3D effect using a variety of media. My pages lean towards the dramatic and I love experimenting with papers and pushing the limits of what is traditionally done.

I'm an art educator in a public school and believes anyone can create meaningful Art! Teaching art is what inspires me and keeps me learning! My young students teach me so much!

Currently, I design for Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft and Scrapbooking From The Inside Out. I have been published in several paper and online magazines, including Scrap N’ Art, Scrapbooking and Beyond, Scrapbook Trends, and others.


Hi UmWow fans... Jen Matott here as a guest CT for April! I'm so honored to be creating with these amazing products! I knew I wanted to keep the gorgeous brown color of these chipboard pieces! They are seriously WOW! So, I combined my love for encaustic and these fabulous shapes.

Encaustic is painting with melted wax. It's usually beeswax but can be other kinds of wax too. I use beeswax and damar resin colored by color sticks from Enkaustikos. I started with a wooden substrate with a deep set. I added a few layers of wax and then adhered the pattern paper onto the surface with a few more layers of wax brushed on.Then I added some colored wax and embedded the Hexagon Background piece and Hexagon Confetti!

More colored wax added in and around the honeycomb. This is the part I love most... embellishing!

I just keep adding color and use a heat gun to fuse the layers and allow the colors to swirl together! It also gets rid of most of the brushstrokes or imperfections!


Another fun technique is adding "drawn" details using an UmWow hexagon stencil and carbon paper or transfer paper in black. I place the carbon side down on the wax and place the stencil on top. I used a stylus to draw lines with the stencil and when you lift the paper off, you have black lines!

Finally, I made "wings" using wire, pattern paper and wax. They were embedding into the wax as well.

I love how this project came together and it was so easy to be inspired by these gorgeous shapes! I adored them and already have other encaustic projects in mind with other shapes! Thank you to UmWowStudio for inviting me to share my project today!


Supplies:
Hexagon Confetti Mask
Hexagon Confetti
Hexagon Background


Other Supplies:
Wood box
Sewing pattern paper
Wire
Enkaustikos Wax Medium
Enkaustikos Wax Snaps (Bone Black, Cadmium Red Vermillion, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Teal Green, Titanium White, Antique Bronze Pearl, Super Gold Pearl,
Opal Calypso Green)
Enkaustikos Empty Tins
Carbon paper
Sticker: Cosmo Cricket