Although painting was mastered at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the ‘80s, encaustic was self-taught, through trial, error, dedication and sheer stubbornness. The results are an array of complicated techniques, leading to great virtuosity in marks, effects and lustrous surfaces. Abstraction best reveals this virtuosity, and the beauty of this paint, while also addressing time-honoured issues of colour, balance, space, dynamic, progress, sequence, action. Sarah Petite maintains well-equipped studios in two homes, Fredericton, New Brunswick and Port Maitland, Nova Scotia. Her works have gone out to several public and several private collections.