Blue and Brown Dragonfly with Pencil

As I was making dragonflies for the Swarm show, I decided to add a little artistic nod as well. Patterned after the skimmers I love, this whimsical dragonfly holds a mini-pencil and is ready to draw along with the artist in your life.

I jigged a dragonfly from 26-gauge steel wire. I wrapped a small brown pencil around the body of the dragonfly. Then I dipped blue and brown tissue paper and a hand-striped teabag into encaustic medium (a beeswax and resin mixture) and adhered it to the shape. This dragonfly has a wingspan of 4 1/4 inches and measures 3 3/4 inches long. The pencil gives it a depth of 3/4 inch.

Encaustics should be cared for as you would for any fine art piece. Encaustic derives from the word ‘burn in’ and is a process of applying molten wax colors to a surface for the creation of images or decoration that began more than 2 millennia ago with Roman Egyptian wax portraits.