4 panel Encaustic painting, finished!

by | Mar 9, 2010 | , | 6 Comments

It’s finished….I think!. As far as I can tell it’s finished although I might come back in a day or two and see little places that might be adjusted for some reason.

I had to remove one quote in the upper part. ….I decided since this was turning into an Umbria/Tuscany trip painting, I would title it, “The Green Heart of Italy”, so I put that in the top over the other writing. The finished painting is 4 panels, 36 x 48″ total.

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4 panel Encaustic painting progress

by | Mar 8, 2010 | , | 1 Comment

I’m finally making progress on the 4 panel painting……….collage, mixed media, encaustic. As mentioned earlier I noticed the panels are actually about 1/4″ off so I can’t turn them every which way to line them up as I thought I might be able to do. SO….they are definitely vertically oriented although the finished piece will  be horizontal.

Last time I worked on these before the week-end, I left the studio thinking it was a good thing the last work flowed for me since this one is being a little more contrary. I really don’t know where I’m going. Sometimes I like that…well really, I mostly always like that. BUT, some parts of some processes don’t and they demand you either know what you are doing, or be ready to go with whatever happens…and heck, cover it up if it doesn’t work out. SO, I’m giving it up to all the higher powers to guide me through this work.

I first just put medium on all the panels after I marked here and there all over the pieces with Conte. I had been rummaging through my junk, collage stuff and found some quotes that sounded interesting to include. So I added them to the panels…two of them, anyway. This is best done before adding the medium as you can’t write with the usual pencils or chalks on top of the medium. (This is what I mean about knowing where you’re going). Of course, as I applied the medium I changed my mind where the two with the writing would go.

I started tossing out a lot of papers..and pieces of junk I collected on trips. I just kept tearing and cutting the pieces of paper out and laying them down. Now…nothing really looked good or showed promise at all in my estimation.

 
This is a section of the farthest left panel before I applied medium to the papers lying there.
 
These sections are the ones to the farthest right. Yeah….there is my Umbrella pine again….I’ve used it several times…this is the first time I’ve used my photo as a transfer and I also added some to it. I have some other collaged elements from that same trip.  So far there is not much encaustic paint on TOP of the collaged elements. First I lay down the pieces and then I have to just decide to add the medium over and fuse them. If it doesn’t work out, I can heat it up and move it or paint over it later. I have to say…working with wax and collage elements is easier in that they don’t go blowing and moving around quite so easily as doing them on paper with acrylic medium. BUT you can easily almost cover up what you want to remain so you have to be careful in some areas…..or do a lot of scraping back.
 
Now I have some encaustic paints starting to build up on the far right panel and some into the one to its left.
 
Parts of the far left panel…. nore work to be done and medium and fusing to do here.
 
I got back and held the camera up as far as I could. I was tempted to climb on a chair but my good sense returned and I put the chair back…nothing like falling down and then hurting myself for a picture of a work in progress.
This is how I left it at the end of the day. Can’t keep working as hubby will be wondering if I’ve deserted him…and especially his dinner……Humm..what’s that dinner going to be?

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On to the next painting session

by | Mar 4, 2010 | , | 0 Comments

On to the next painting…and a snafu or two. Today, I turned the old wooden drawing table over to see if I could raise it up a little more…………..yaay, it seems I can. This is a lot better for collaged encaustic work…or any collage for that matter as it is much more exactly for placement of the elements.

I opened up my last box of panels… 4, 12 x 36″ ones from CheapJoes. They are the extra deep prime panels and I like them a lot. However, in this instance, I noticed a snafu here when I laid them out on the table. I thought I would line them all up and work as a whole multiple…either verticle or horizontal…no matter. However, lining them up I began to see other possibilities UNTIL I noted that the one on the end placed vertically lined up next to the other three laying out horizontally didn’t line up exactly. Finally, I measured and these panels are all the same size but they are 1/4 inch short of 36″ SO, I can’t play around with all the arranging I thought might be fun to do.  Bummer. Guess I’ll just go back to the first impulse and line them all up going the same way.

This is something to remember in case I ever do want to do the other arrangement sometime to make a little change-up in panel orientation in the future.

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Encaustic Diptych Finished

by | Mar 3, 2010 | , | 0 Comments

 

Some days, things just work themselves out. Today was such a day. I added some more paint, wax, papers, fused and decided it just didn’t need any more work.

The title of this piece is “People Say”. The reason for the title…….it’s part of the quote included in the text/writing on the painting. The size is a total of 24 x 36″ for both panels.

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New mixed media diptych started

by | Mar 2, 2010 | | 0 Comments

Today I started working more on the new encaustic mixed media diptych. I got out the panels yesterday…both 24 x 18″….so the two will measure 24 x 36 like the last piece I did….only in two parts.

I laid out some papers I had after scrounging around in all my papers. Then I decided I didn’t want the color of the wood to interfere in the relationships of the color or non-color. So I got out the encaustic gesso again……Holy Grail and then had to wait for it to dry. Today in the humidity, it took longer than usual. I fished around in all my mark marking crayons and pencils and found some pastels and that sort of thing. I made marks randomly after taking some papers off the panels. I did a little writing that might or might not be there when I get through across the tops of both panels. I don’t like to be able to read the whole thing although I don’t mind a few words here and there.

After taking all the papers off I hit the whole surface of both panels with clear encaustic medium and fused them. Then I got the papers back out and laid them down again. they never go back where you started…but that’s okay in this instance. As you note the pieces look light. When you start laying the medium to them they will darken. SO, although I know they will be darker, I just go with it and put them down anyway. I will have to work with the relationships of the values and colors as they develop.

I went looking through all my papers again and found a drawing I did a gazillion years ago of an old elm tree. I don’t remember if it is charcoal or graphite but I tried the transfer method and it worked great without having to wet the paper……..I just rubbed the dickens out of the back of the paper and it went into the wax.

By the end of the afternoon, I had this to show for all the relationships and fusing………..

SO…I’ll be back tomorrow to work on this some more….

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Winding down on the latest encaustic painting

by | Mar 1, 2010 | , | 1 Comment

 

I’ve been back for two more sessions working on this latest encaustic painting. Before today I was a little concerned about too much texture over all the panel. Now I have heated carefully, let cool a little and scraped over and over (thanks, Hylla, for the tips). I think now it has smoother areas to play against the texture….at least when you run your hand over it. This photo makes the sky look a little light to me now. I will just have to get more accurate photos later. There really is a touch of that ochre in the upper plane along with the pale, grayed blue violet.

Another thing that had been bothering me (and still does as a small thumbnail)…….the greenish ochre areas in the foreground looked too much like big splotches. I now have and smoothed them out some and spread the color a little more across that plane. It might could do with a little more coolness possibly but it works okay this way as well since the warm advances.

I’ll have to think about a title  although this is making me think desert, colors of the southwest, etc. Any suggestions? I  hate to title something too explicitly without a real gut feeling about it that is authentic.

Back to Hylla…….she is Hylla of EvansEncaustics.com. She is a peach and gave me some tips for the smoothing down of some of these textured areas. She also makes gorgeous encaustic paint and medium. Give them a try, I think you’ll like them. Oh yeah….and it was her Holy Grail encaustic gesso I used at the first of this painting.

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Encaustic progress

by | Feb 25, 2010 | , | 2 Comments

I got back to work on the 24 x 36″ cradled panel after a break for the week-end trip to Dallas.

I just couldn’t leave this as a tree…….I love trees, and they appear all the time in my work ever since I started painting. However, I am not planning to revert to any manner of realism and this was going that way……..IT IS NOW GONE.

First round in the studio I brushed on every conceivable color and range of red and orange, purple, golds……… Just covered pretty much all of the previous image. I started turning it all around and I need to remind myself to do this often so I don’t get locked into a design that isn’t going anywhere. OR, keep myself from doing something a little more out of my current box and comfort zone.

Next session……..adding wax takes an enormously longer time that wiping out an acrylic under-painting….My back can testify to this.

Now the thing is horizontal and it starts looking like a landscape…(after adding a lot more color besides red). So much for getting out of the comfort zone, huh.  The handling of the encaustic pigments IS out of my comfort zone for this size work.

This painting is beginning to mesmerize me with all it’s little nuances of color. IT SUCKS. It is not a painting, it is a lot of color nuance. When you get away from it, it dies from no distinct value contrast…..anywhere. SO, I take it out to take a photo at this point.

Then I just bite the bullet and paint a whole 5″ across the top WHITE.

Hum…. I didn’t see this picture before I did the white….looks better outside…However this painting would not be hung outside.  I may have made a mistake with the white…but what’s done is done and I will have to work with it.

Here it is with the white across the top…….darn it, it looks crooked and I even measured.  Oh well. It will not stay this way long……but that will come later as I have to run to the dentist, pick up a painting and make a run into the grocery store.

My thoughts are running toward putting that violet back in the top where the white is but this time it will be a paler, grayer value/hue which I hope with give more contrast without the lack it had before.  We’ll see next session.

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New encaustic painting in Progress

by | Feb 19, 2010 | | 2 Comments

Back up in the studio today to start doing something with the 24 x 36″ panel with the coat of Evans Holy Grail on it. If anyone doesn’t know…this stuff is like gesso for encaustic painting. You cannot use regular acrylic gesso or anything acylic under or with wax or it might or most likely will pop off at some point.

This is a size panel I’ve never worked on before for encaustic painting. If I continue to work with encaustic a lot, I will have to have larger pieces as working on all these little ones is just not for me. I worked on the two panels for the 48 x 48″ diptych and it was no more of a problem than a couple of small ones I thought other than the physicality of applying all that wax. Same with my other paintings….I like to make big gestures.

Well……this ain’t gonna happen with encaustic…..the big gestures. It’s dried and cooled by the time I can get it to the board….so no fluidity. (Unless I learn some way to remedy that.)

SO….with that nice white ground, I set about laying out some color all over and making some gestural marks with oil paint. I’ve never done this before as a beginning for encaustic. I didn’t use any medium other than thinner and just painted a lot of it on. This took a gazillion years since I had to heat and unscrew all the dried on tops of the tubes. SO, I didn’t use many colors being lazy as I am.  I had it in mind to make a 2010 winter painting….don’t know how and why but I had it in mind. Of course, I had to start with color though so I used violet, magenta, cad red light…kind of analagous, gorgeous colors.

 
  
Hum…. started out looking like my layout for lots of land inspired work….then I add more paints and squished them all around with a paper towel so they wouldn’t be wet or have any thinner left when I added wax medium  I don’t know if this is kosher or not but I do know you have to have a ratio of a lot more wax than oil paint in your encaustic paintings if you want them to dry and fuse properly.  Then I just added a good layer of a lot of medium all over this panel and fused it gently.
It’s a toss up what this might become is my reasoning…thought about getting out some papers but then figured I’d just wing it and see what happened. I got out the flow tool, wax crayons, oil sticks and turned the whole thing around a few times.  A real mess.

Looks like a tree or some other type of  organic shape is emerging.  I just kept adding paint, medium, marks and fusing until at the end of the day I had this going…….light is not good…all the clouds have rolled in again.

Taking photos does a lot to tell me that the black is too prominent in the photo…there will be scraping and fusing and more paint added…maybe another plane but this is looking like the old pecan tree I gaze down on from the studio…

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Encaustic painting

by | Feb 18, 2010 | | 1 Comment

I’m continuing to work on the small encaustic pieces. I picked up a little piece I worked on in the workshop and didn’t know what in the world I was going to do with this little painting unless I put in into a larger painting. SO, that is what I did. This little piece looked so much like the dormancy prevalent in winter that I went for adding a ‘background’ for it. This picture seems to look a lot more yellow that what I see in person…….but I think it worked out.

DEAD OF WINTER…….. encaustic, 10 x 10″ cradled panel

I work on a couple of pieces at a time so I had my eye still on this piece that I put a heavy matted paper on earlier. I also dug some stuff out of a basket and laid that out with it. It has a primitive face, beads and leather strings. What in the heck am I going to do with this I couldn’t figure out. I see things like this off and on and I like them, but when I try to work with this kind of material I’m verging on not being my usual self. I decided I would do it anyway, so I just started adding papers and I made marks on the papers with charcoal. Medium was layered on and fused…….oops the little metal face wants to come loose when it gets hot.  I just kept adding marks and made some with the flow tool as well. I liked the nice little ‘accidental’ green that came out of the tool before I added the white.  Finally, I came up with this to photograph.

PRIMITIVE…..encaustic, papers, found elements, 10 x 10″ cradled panel

I’ve got the Holy Grail  ( Evans Encaustics ) applied and drying on a new larger 24 x 36″ board now………ready to go later. I love having that lovely white surface to start on sometimes.

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More Encaustic work

by | Feb 9, 2010 | | 0 Comments

Okay……the previous start just didn’t work for me. SO, something to do is just paint over it. That I did, and I chose yellow since yellow was already there in the under-painting. As the work developed I could still see some of the marks I made and they continued to make me think of plants/trees/organic matter. By the time I got through manipulating the paint, scraping and adding more in variations…….it made me think of the fossils found of plant and animal life from eons ago. SO,…..tentatively, I titled this work , Yellow-Gray, Fossil.

I started to work on another small 10 x 10 x 2″ panel. This one had a layer of natural beeswax or two on it and I drew and made marks with some oil sticks and pastels, added some wax, fused and manipulated it all around and added more wax. Yellow must be permeating my life today with the sun shining so this one also got a great dollop of yellow. I have titled this work, Yellow Sky Kinda Day.

Upon seeing this one…I may have to do a little more finessing of this band of blues…just a little too straight across without enough variation. We’ll see!

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