Mo Godbeer
Mo Godbeer
I emigrated to Australia from England in 1987. After completing a diploma of fine art in Sydney, I fell in love with encaustic.
My art is informed by my life, which is an unusual one.
In 2013 my partner and I sold our house gave away most of our "stuff" and we bought a caravan and for the last 10 years we have been full time travellers.
We travel the highways and byways of Australia be it bush, beach, mountain or forest. We go wherever our hearts lead us. (and where the weather suits our clothes.)
I formed Encaustic Workshops Australia in 2013 and teach encaustic art as we travel. It’s so exciting to inspire a new set of artists and show them this amazing medium.
I believe that no other artform can create such luminosity and depth that encaustic does. I especially love to visit remote regional towns in outback Australia .
Between teaching I spend a lot of time drawing both on paper and digitally. I’m inspired by things I see as we visit different places. That might be a pattern in the sand made by the ocean, a rock that has been weathered by time and the environment, the lines of shadows created by the sun and clouds. A moment in time that leads me to patterns, shapes, colours that excite my desire to create.
For me being able to live the nomadic life I lead and share my knowledge is such a joyous gift. I aim to ignite a fire of creativity in each person I teach.
You can view Mo’s work at:
Class Details
Waxing In the Wild & Encaustic Drawing
One of the challenges of traveling fulltime is being able to work creatively without a studio and loads of equipment, so in this workshop I will show you how I work in a small space whilst off grid.
I will show my current work with encaustic intarsia (or in laid encaustic linework) and layers of colour. In addition to encaustic, I also love to draw. I especially like this intarsia technique as it allows me to draw into the wax as I would draw on paper. I will be working with adding and subtracting (in a fun way not a maths way), and using layering and line work.
I will be working on small panels as they are much easier to use when scraping back and revealing the layers. They are also easy to store. Using old panels with previous layers of encaustic paint on can recreate an exciting new piece of art and make for discoveries in the excavation.
I will show my traveling studio setup, and also some tips and tricks for you to be able to have that special place where you can create, even if you don’t have access to a studio, or mains power electricity.
I'll also show you how I work with minimal equipment and also some cool tools that don’t come from an art shop.
Waxing in the Wild on Location
I will be working completely off grid either on the beach or in the bush.
We will take a few moments to get some inspiration from our surroundings then i will share my mini workshop.
I will go step by step through the process of creating an image transfer from printed drawings and a royalty free image onto an encaustic surface. It’s a simple process and I will give you lots of tips for success with my foolproof method.
