When Mimi Prussack paints, her goal is to express her emotional response to nature to persuade others to experience the natural beauty of our environment. Her intention is to create paintings that capture the warmth and tranquility she experiences while hiking and biking through majestic scenery. She observes the way light changes with the different seasons and dances over the surfaces of the landscapes. Whether it is the changing color of the leaves, the falling snow, lakes and sandy beaches, or fields of wildflowers, she is drawn to the glowing light of the sun. Her objective is to recreate these visions on canvas. She is interested in the textures, patterns, and colors of nature that have lead her to explore and develop her own signature style of painting. There are many complex steps in Mimi Prussack's painting process. Initially she lays down a layer of black acrylic paint to cover the primed surface of the canvas. Then a colorful underpainting is worked quickly without care for detail. The next step in the process in beginning to draw in the composition, always staying conscious of creating strong visual compositions. Prussack begins painting with the darkest colors and working to the lightest. The brightest whites and neutrals are slowly and intuitively added to develop a strong focal point in the painting. She has developed her own formulas for mixing traditional oil paints, additives and wax mediums to form thick impasto paints. The enhanced density the encaustic paints enables her to apply them with palate knives rather than traditional paintbrushes. The stiffness yet flexibility of the palate knives allows her to aggressively apply the paints with spontaneity, building up thick patches of paint and then slicing back through the surface. By carving into the paint, once it has dried and hardened, Mimi creates the movement of swaying leaves and branches, the thinnest blades of grass as well as the thick petals of flowers. Trunks of aspen trees are build up with multiple layers of thick paint. Each layer is allowed to dry before the next combinations of colors are added on top. This is a very time consuming process, but it ultimately gives the painting its sculptural and textural qualities. The final stages of the painting process, distinctive color and excitement are added with the application of oil pastels. The artist quickly adds random dots and dashes of paint to bring interesting contrast to the surface. With the addition of accents in complementary colors the viewer's eye travels across the canvas. Hundreds of combinations of paint colors are created. Once the painting has dried it is set with an embossing tool. The heat causes the encaustic paint to soften, blending neighboring colors freely together. The surface can then be buffed and polished to the desired luminosity. This process gives Mimi Prussack's work it's unique characteristic and glowing surfaces.