Slow progress with wax

A while back I shared my struggles with learning a new skill, specifically encaustics (painting with wax). I continue to plug away and finally, I think I'm starting to get it. Just barely. 

Here are some recent works that I don't mind sharing. 


I made this bird by layering wax over a stencil, then scraping to reveal the different layers. It needs something else -- text, maybe -- but I'm scared if I do anything else, I'll ruin it.

I was going to give up on this next one completely. In fact, I was scraping all the wax off, so I could start over from scratch, when my instructor yelled, "stop! It looks good just like that." So I did. (The image is an old pencil sketch I did ages ago.)

More carving -- I like the colors of the blobs, although I don't like the lines in the background.

Another stencil. Originally the background was solid blue and green, but I like this distressed look better.