Lenka Ivanišinová, who works as an assistant to the HR and assistant to the VP for Strategy, belongs to a group of colleagues who have interesting hobbies. Her hobby is fine arts and in recent years she has been involved in a technique called encaustics.

Crayons for half a day

"I've been picking up crayons since early childhood, maybe from the age of three, four. When I had crayons in my hands, my parents or grandparents didn't know about me for half a day. I never studied fine arts, I didn't even go to art school, it was always just my hobby. In my family, fine arts were considered something that could not make a living for me in life, and they preferred to support me in studying natural sciences and humanities,"  says Lenka.

Gradually, she went from crayons to dry pastel to oil. When she was about 19 years old, thanks to a painter who was already retired, she discovered the technique of oil painting, which she had been afraid of until then, and she also began to experiment with oil.

 Paradise looks like an open-air painting workshop in Medzev

"I started painting more when I started going to painting plein-airs organized by U. S. Steel Košice. It helped me a lot and plein-airs literally opened the door to painting for me. I met academic painters Pavel Kvoriak and Dušan Baláž there. Pali liked my paintings, so he became my mentor. Later we became friends and we meet regularly, whether at shows or just like that. I learned a lot about how to mix colors, about composition, how not to be afraid of canvases with large dimensions and how to paint freely and playfully without concentrating on the final result... In my imagination, paradise looks like plein-air in Medzev: clean nature and air, sun, amazing people with open hearts and humor, great food and painting from morning to evening," recalls Lenka.

During the plein-airs, she focused mainly on acrylic. She liked to paint, for example, swans, or old village houses, flowers, gardens, and for some time she was fascinated by gates. Two paintings by Lenka Ivanišinová, Hricková from the time of plein air painting, also decorate the walls in our building. In the cover photo, she is in front of one of them. Lenka has one of her private collections in her office.

  Abstract images in which everyone sees something different

When Lenka's daughter Hanka, who will be 5 years old, was born, she doesn't have much time for acrylic, watercolor or oil. Before Hanka was born, she began to devote herself to encaustic and stayed with this art style. It is a very fast technique, a picture can be made within half an hour. In addition, abstract pictures are not only beautiful, but everyone can find and see something completely different in them."This technique," says Lenka, "was taught to me by Pavol Kvoriak, who also devoted himself to it. I liked it very much right away."

To make a picture, an encaustic iron, special paper and waxes are required. Waxes should be applied to a warm iron and then strokes to create various shapes and images on the paper. This technique is also used as a therapy for the elderly, basically anyone can do it. It's great for relaxing. The most beautiful things are often created on auxiliary paper, where the iron only cleans and squeezes out excess wax and does not deal with composition and colors at all."

Note: Encaustic is a painting technique in which molten colored wax is used as a coloring medium. The painting tool is heated metal sticks, or special heated pens, or encaustic irons. The method of dyeing has been known since 100-300 BC, from the so-called Fayyum portraits from Egypt.

 Custom coloring pages

Lenka's daughter Hanka has seen her mother create since she was a child and wants to be like her. She has been drawing and painting on canvas with acrylic since she was about two years old. In addition, she wants her mother to draw specific pictures or situations for her (people behind the windows on the plane, a house inhabited by people), which she then paints. So Lenka also makes "custom-made" coloring books for her daughter.

She donates most of the paintings. It has sold few of them, this is not the goal. She likes to give them away and when she sees that the recipient is pleased, her joy is all the greater. Academic painter friends have been telling her for years to paint at least 20 paintings and make an exhibition for her, but she hasn't gotten around to it yet. With exhibitions, the rule usually applies that they should be created during the year, a maximum of two, which is certainly not a threat now .

•  She never painted a sad picture

When asked if Lenka wants to continue painting, she replied as follows: "I will continue to paint. If I didn't paint, it wouldn't be me. Many times, painting has helped me even in difficult times. When I paint, I usually paint with cheerful, bright colors. Even though I'm sad. More than once I imagined what it would be like if I made a living only by painting, but I realize how difficult it would be to create under pressure. Now I paint because I want to, not because I have to."