Saturday 22 March 2014

trials to find "my way" in encaustics

            
                                                Encaustic Medium to be written as EM


this idea from: Wax and Paper book by Michelle Belto

I love her work and ideas, one worry though for the health conscious, the "rigid foam core boards" she uses under the paper;
I apply lots of heat when I play with the encaustic medium, it seems to me there might be an issue with fumes, if and when the heat transfers to the foam, toxic fumes?
I have decided to leave the foam board for non Encaustic works, just to be safe
 
Print glued to base, encaustic medium (EM) layer, masking tape layered in grid (make sure the EM is at least a day old, otherwise some wax might come off when tape is removed)
White EM applied, more EM layers
This is my check how transparency works on EM



an idea from my Eco dye sample's lovely texture
Marks made with all sorts of tools, oil paint for staining and stylus for filling in ridges
 
my own print as background, glued on art paper, marks hammered in, oil paint to stain, and hoping for transparency of EM

colleague lent me some cogs and things, they are used in various ways to leave prints: positive, negative and trace, oil paint, oil sticks, EM with pigment and lots of fun play with heat
 
Love Jane Guthridges work.
Here is my trial with rice paper stripes, will take some practicing but is an intriguing idea


 the next trial:
now here is a fascinating way to use EM and Shellac, on this work I used burning Shellac on only half the panel following lots of layers of different coloured EM
On the next panel, again lots of layered coloured EM finished with a Titanium white EM layer, Shellac was added and lit, adjustments can be made with the blowtorch.... all outside in a fire safe area of course

 
 
 
 
 some details
 
 
More experimentations:

 
 now this one is intriguing too, I am inclined to venture in this direction....
 
After seeing Alicia Tormey's beautiful works, I have started to experiment with effect.
I tried outside the box, with all different paints, pigments and inks.
In this case I am plying with EM colours and oil sticks, heat gun versus blow torch, different heats and airflow

 


Working on a larger Landscape now...................... want to go and wax a bit more............. 
 

Friday 21 March 2014

2014 - Encaustic

my new thing..................... Encaustics

I have been painting (well experimenting more like) all year with a Beeswax medium, encaustic paints (Beeswax medium and pigment), oil pastels and sticks (Sennelier being my favourite so far) and affordable Encaustic blocks.

As always when you learn something new, there is lots of money to be spent on new equipment for it.
Being a thrifty person by nature I tend to cut it down with a lot of research...

Heating the main component of encaustic is: you have to keep the wax in liquid form at somewhere between 65o and 100o Celsius, to paint with it, if it heats too much the wax gets damaged.

So far I managed:
  • an electric pot for making up the medium
  • an electric skillet for the plain encaustic medium (to keep the pan on it warm)
  • an electric griddle for all the colours and mixing, plus keeping the brush warm
  • several foldable encaustic (travel iron can do too, just make sure the temperature is adjustable) iron
  • several encaustic stylus and bits with it

more to follow, got to go to work unfortunately.............