Yesterday I decided I had procrastinated enough with some recycled panels my daughter found me…both 24 x 48. I want to use them for encaustic since good panels are expensive. I also want to paint with wax larger. I knew that whatever was on them was not going to be conducive for working with wax as it has to be an absorbent surface. I thought at first it was gold metallic paper but it turned out to be canvas.
SO, instead of heating and sanding it off, I just sanded it and covered it with some of the roll Arches paper I have here and am not using. It turned out that I’m about 3 1/2 inches short on the long end with 44 inch wide paper. But, why not use something else there? That way I won’t have to cut up all that paper into unwieldy strips. I used Nova gloss medium pretty heavily on the panel and weighted down the paper until I could roller/brayer it out. I actually found that the big 12″ wall board knife worked great for this.
This morning I looked and it looks like it is going to stay flat and looks great. SO, will need to do the other one but I will wait until I get this one going first so see if I want to leave that extra edge a little different than on this one so they will work well together as a diptych or pair.
Woo hoo…should be fun to work BIG.
yay she's bloggin, painting AND recycling 🙂
Great ideas for an alternate approach that will serve your needs better. You are giving me courage to take my stash of canvases and mount them to panels for oil/cold wax painting. Might be better than using galkyd in the paint mixture for flexiblity on the canvas in the hopes of preventing cracking. Thanks.
barbara, one caveat…I plan to use these for encaustic. Are you planning to recycle the canvases with something already on them containing solvents, etc? In this case, I don't know that it would work although people can experiment all they like. I would be afraid regular encautstic (not cold wax technique) would not work and would pop off later….OR you might get a lot of fumes from fusing something containing solvent.
But it you are going to use cold wax/oil I would think it would work well but I would sand the surface of the canvas if it already has a dried painting on it.
Sounds like a great beginning. I think the larger encaustics will be beautiful…but industrious. I ordered one of those slotted brushes as they are supposed to move more wax but have not tried them yet. I cannot wait to see what you do with these large panels…
yeah next time I need to order from Encaustikos I will try one, too. Did you get the original one or the one with fewer bristles…???
These are new canvases that I've been accumulating as I came across a good buy. Now I'm using cold wax as a medium with oil paint, but I like the feel of a rigid surface, like the cradled wood panels I also use. I can apply a great deal more pressure when working on the rigid surface. This new direction occured after a workshop with Rebecca Crowell last April. We're not sure whether the addition of galkyd will prevent the cracking of the drier, oil/wax mixture, even though the label states that galkyds make strong, flexible paint films.
Barbara… I was hoping that was the case as you can't put encaustic wax on anything that has been prepped with a primer that isn't made especially for it or it will pop under certain circumstances. I plan to do a little work with the cold wax if and when I can fit it into my day with everything else.
Although there are the words 'wax'…the cold wax and encaustic techniques are very different.
A harder surface would be great if you like to manipulate the surface fairly harshly….easier for me with collage elements as well.