Almost Winter

I finally drug the two encaustic panels out to the studio porch to photograph them. I was somewhat worried about the wind blowing all of us off but I made it back in before the big gust came. It wasn't easy as I had to back down some stairs and hard to get the two pieces to line up for the photos. While editing, I could almost crop out part of the edges of the images. I think this is close enough.

They are finished except I will need to paint the edges with something (not wax)to blend with the front of the paintings. It will be considered a diptych.....and I've played around with various titles. I think "Almost Winter" will do.

Studio stuff

I've just been refining some on the panels...polishing etc. I made a boo boo one evening and left my pot of medium on low in the crockpot and now I'm having to get it out of the pot and probably never use it. What a waste that is for that much medium.

BUT, I have also been working on putting together some panels I ordered before ever moving. I'm not sure I'm doing this right but I'm gluing and clamping the mitered corners. Then I will use finishing nail/brads and glue to attach the front plywood to the top.

While doing all this little studio stuff I kept glancing out the window out to the south and west of the studio. I'm on the second floor so I have a good view out. I just couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures with my telephoto lens. One is looking toward our small lake and the others are looking toward the creek bottoms.

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Panel Progress, continued

I realize you may not see differences in today and yesterday......BUT, it IS there. I even did some scraping. For one thing, I'd been working on the second panel more so today I looked and the first panel (which was my favorite) was looking a little rough in comparison to the second one. Now.....do I want to refine the first one more or add more to the second one???

Maybe do both....so I added some more orange and yellow to the second one, camouflaged the edges of the left side of the second one. Edges are SO important in this as in all painting....sharpen some, soften some.

So much to my shoulder's distress, I kept moving them from wax station to painting wall. I scraped some but I like a certain amount of raw look and texture and not all smooth refined surface. Smooth can be beautiful...on someone else's painting..not necessarily on MINE.

Looking at them together..if I really want this to be a conjoined two panel painting I might add some more linear work and wax to the right one to connect more to the left side. As a separated diptych or just two panels in the same group, I could just leave it alone. If I 'connect' them, I might want to add more neutral white in the right one as it has so much less and is more than a little yellow in the background areas compared to the left.

Decisions, decisions....all is decision and looking at the relationships.

Panel Progress, continued

The bottom photo is after I've been working for a short time adding color and neutral pigments. The one above is a closer in shot of this second panel.

As mentioned yesterday, I wanted to get both panels to about the same amount of finish so they would be compatible to be hung together or NOT.. I work this way with my acrylic on canvas or collage paintings as well. I can complete more with less effort ( I think). I, also, don't get too bogged down with detail or
too much nuance at the wrong times in the process of working. The work will remain fresher.......and oh yeah, my neck will appreciate it a lot.

The top picture is of the two panels at this stage of the painting process. There is a lot of wax and pigment on all parts of the panels now. The next stages will be to refine or cover/expose. I haven't done ANY scraping. This is mostly positive painting with a lot of negative painting into it just as I do with acrylic. ..oh yeah and fuse, fuse, fuse.

Negative painting sure does turn on the right side of the brain...and time flies.

Panel Progress

I started back in on the panels again today. I made some progress on one of them.

First, I did decide that I thought I would go with yellow as the accent with these black, gray and white (whitish)paintings.

SO...I got out my oil sticks and made more marks and scribbles around as is my general method of working. You do have to start somewhere. ..and this was it for me. I did this on my wall easel again so I could actually see what I was doing. It is near impossible to see anything working on something fairly large laying flat out on a table.

I did say yellow........but that means all kinds a varieties of yellows from lemon to ochre.....AND I LOVE orange.

Then I took one of the panels down and carried it back to my studio kitchen aka encaustic painting area. This place is never going to be the same..in the sunlight I could see fine drops of wax flying in the air..off to furniture and almost certainly to the floor, my jeans and shoes. I wouldn't have know for some time if the sun hadn't come raking through the windows just so.

Anyway...this one panel has a good second layer of scribbling, scumbling, and more laying down of encaustic medium with various pigments glazed in.

I think I will work on the other one next to keep these works going in tandem and try not to get too finished on one before moving on to the other.

Panel Progress

I've had a good day although it must look like I haven't done that much. Those of you who work with encaustic know that working on 24 x 48" panels takes a little more time than throwing some acrylic around for one layer. There are two panels here. I decided to load them all to a folder in Picasa for viewing. There are labels for each picture.

As I mentioned before...I mounted watercolor paper to these panels so that wax would absorb into the surface. I was afraid the old surface might not work for wax painting. I had space left at each end so I put some paper I found that probably came from all those gorgeous papers I find at art supply stores. I tore off some charcoal colored heavy paper and mounted it at the bottoms.

OK..where to go from here?? Guess I'll just do what I do with other paintings while forgoing the toning I usually do.........I get out the willow charcoal and just make marks. Whatever marks are my marks for the day...just depends on the mood. I don't analyze it or put any intellectual thought into what kind of mark I'm going to make. You can cover it up later if you want to anyway. One good thing about encaustic and acrylic painting...guess that is my attraction to both mediums.

I'm also attracted to the use of collaged elements in paintings and with wax, no glue is needed since the wax with hold it down...and you can cover as much or little as you like.

I don't know yet if there will be any more added or not but for unity, there probably will be some since that is a heavy element there in the bottom of the picture plane right now. One bad about having a panels with hangers already on them...might make for a problem if I like them better horizontal or upside down. Oh well...I will face that problem if it arises later. I can remove those hangers and move them for sure.

Humm..now to dream...what color or no color or what?? Guess I'll find out as I go.

Panel Prep Continued

I finally got back up to the studio to work on the other panel I am preparing for encaustic. I took a couple of pictures the other day...then the camera battery went dead earlier when I was going to show the sanding, etc. Oh well, ...here are pictures of the panels prepped, drying and waiting for the wax..tomorrow, I hope.

Oh yeah, you will note that the d 'Arches is not quite wide enough to go the full 48" length of the panels. I (on purpose) did not cut into the paper to make it a full coverage. To me that would have been more of a problem to cut straight...and I always figure a little bit of a challenge to work on a project adds dimension to the project in the end. It forces a little more innovation to work with materials in a different way. It makes me come up with a new wheel so to speak.

The second panel didn't glue down quite so easily as the first. Finally I have it all down though and it looks fine. Then I looked around for more papers or wood strips or anything that might work in that space at the end with no w/c paper on it. I found some good thick paper with lettering on it. This paper will be heavy enough (like the d "Arches to not have medium seep through and ruin the bond with the wax later. I cut and tore it off un-evenly and am now leaving all to dry overnight.

The sides of the panels still have some of the gold covered canvas, slightly sanded. When I get through with the work I will decide then what color to paint or stain them to go with the work. For now, I'm doing nothing to them.

Panel Prep

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.

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Johnson Creek, Pasture Land

I just didn't know what to do with the first painting I started at colony. It was going the same way as many of my Little Pieces of Land paintings. Toned it with a warm ground and drew marks and shapes in my usual mode. That's the problem...I need to get out of my usual mode now and then. i can't find the picture here in the house on this computer as I think it is on my laptop in the studio.

This canvas is 48 x 36 and I just broke out a couple of brayers and some left over neutral mixtures of paint I had out from a previous painting and was going to just paint over it and start again. What's another layer, huh!

Anyway, in the process of covering up, I found something else........that little bit of land peeping out of the colors I just kept mixing up intuitively. I like it. It's softer than my usual pieces but that stronger design does come though here and there and marries with the top layer to become its own.

The ranch where we live is about 200 acres and I look out on all this every time I look out the windows in the house or in the studio. There is a creek that runs through named Johnson Creek............SO, this painting is titled, "Johnson Creek, Pasture Land".

Joy In A Sunny Day

OK.........yeah, taking a new picture this morning of the painting from yesterday. It turned out much better and to show the brightness of the day.

I think "Joy In A Sunny Day" is an appropriate title. AND, it does have imperfections...and I like that. In photographing it I noted I did it on it's intended side....and I kinda liked it that way, but I will leave it as is and let anyone who wants to buy it decide how they want to hang it.

Painting on a sunny day

After a really good day of sleeping late (good time change to fall back), I had a lazy day baking bread and just generally lazing around. I finally did get up to my studio. I have two paintings started up there. One of these was weird for me..I threw paint on it, graphite, sprayed it to seal up the graphite and then had to head home from Colony. Colony was a whole week of rain although a wonderful painting trip.........I've been waaaay tired of rain. Anyway, the start was a rainy day painting, this is a sunny day painting.

The past couple of days we have had the good old autumn cool days with SUN. Anyway, this is just to let you know why I planned to title this painting, "Rejoice in a Sunny Day". Well, best intentions...the picture was taken in cool light and shade and so the colors are waaaay off. If they aren't that is not going to be the title. I'll go back up and see if it 'died' tomorrow. If so, I'll have to work on it again or change the intended title that popped into my head.

This is just a quick pic taken off the porch of the studio..........more later in better light if all goes well....cause this does not look sunny in this picture.

Happy November 1.

Diptych finished

Finally got the diptych done ....two 36 x 36" canvases. I guess they could be stand alone, too, I haven't decided. Anyone want to think up some good titles for me? I've already got a Little Pieces of Land diptych from the past although I guess I could title another one.

Now, I'm hoping that it's just my monitor but these pics today I made outside seem a mite light and washed out. Anyway...........here's the finished piece(s) I'd been working on before Colony.


Only two more Colony starts to go to be finished with all of them and then into the wax studio again as cool weather should be hitting.

The Alchemy of Encaustic

I have some work in a Texas Wax group show,The Alchemy of Encaustic, at Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas. This is one of the three encaustic paintings I will be showing. It is titled, Patina 5......12 x 12" x 2", collage, encaustic

October 30 - December 10, 2009

Opening reception Friday, October 30, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Kilgore College
Anne Dean Turk Fine Arts Gallery
1100 Broadway
Kilgore, TX 75662

October 30 - December 10, 2009

Opening reception Friday, October 30, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Progress

Progress is being made on the current diptych.......no magic genie came in over night though. I'll have to keep looking at it to see where the few touch ups and corrections might be..........OR, worse comes to worse, larger corrections if I find it needs them.

In fact...maybe it shouldn't be a diptych but two paintings xyz title 1 and 2 and could be used that way or not.

The Uglies and other things

well...it's happening as usual..................the uglies. This diptych has reached this phase. Funny how looking at the white canvas is not my worst moment....it's a new beginning where I can put on all those beautiful pigments. They look so wonderful with the white showing through the transparency as I build up color. I almost hate to cover them up. SO, when this ugly stage hits, it's almost a relief to just let them go. The beginning and the end are the most fun. It's when you don't know where you're going..............and when you finally know where you are going. It's that muddling lost feeling you have in the middle that is the pits.

Sorry that ugly picture is up in the studio. Maybe next post the painting will be on it's way to a better state.

Oh yeah...that nice clip I posted of Wolf Kahn talking about his work and how color and texture conflict. A good friend and fabulous artist, Cathy Hegman, mentioned that must be why she is painting with neutrals lately. Yeah...they do conflict since you can hardly concentrate on more than one element at a time without taking away from the other. Sometimes you give up something to make an emphasis on the other.

Contemporary Art - NewArtTV: Wolf Kahn ( http://ping.fm/QFw5a )

Watery 2

Ahhh...I never did get back as promised with the other 30 x 30" painting I was working on. It was about 90%finished but needed a little more finessing as most do when I come home from Colony.

I have a good excuse........60-75 mile per hour winds came through and knocked out the power for the majority of the day and took out some good trees as well as blocked in my new asphalt driveway into the farm. I posted some photos on Face Book.......oh yeah, and you can follow me on FB by just running a search on my name. I have no idea what or where the URL is to do it directly. I guess I should do that.

Back to the painting. Here it is...I suppose I must title it "Watery 2" since it is so similar to another larger piece I did a short time ago.

Asphalt and art

Asphalt or art!


Today most of the day is spent in household stuff..........AND getting our long uphill drive and area near the garage and under my studio asphalted. It was LONG overdue.

I did finally get upstairs to the studio to work on another 30 x 30" canvas. No pics since it was too late to get a good one ..for one reason. For the other, I have to make sure it is finished.

Here's a couple of pictures of asphalt...I KNOW you will love to see asphalt. Tomorrow if the sun is right and the painting is finished I'll get one of it for you.

Oh yeah...pardon the second pic taken through the window screen.

In between I made a fine pot of baby lima beans........yum!

Hail the Heils (http://ping.fm/2iILC)

Isn't this an absolutely wonderful story!

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Two paintings finished

Finishing up a few paintings from COLONY.

I decided there was a lot of time between working on the diptych from the previous post and the five pieces from Colony. SO, I needed to finish up a couple of them and get them squared away.

These two needed very little...slight color variations to make for a more interesting variety was about it.

No titles yet...take that back..the 40 x 30" painting is probably Little Pieces of Land 32 and the other one,30 x 30" has something to do with Turquoise matrix but I'm not sure yet that will be the title.

It was very cloudy yesterday...these may need new pictures later when we have sun and I have time.

Back In The Studio

I don't even want to look to see how long it's been since I posted to this blog. SO many things come up. I have worked, but just not taken pictures or time to write anything.

Just before heading off to Colony I applied another layer to the beginning of a diptych I started. However, I never posted the last picture of the progress.I wanted to take it to Colony to work on but just ran out of space in the SUV to carry that many canvases.

Now here I am getting all those things that pile up while you are gone done..........and had to have a new central unit put in the studio.


Yaaay.....now I have not two paintings in progress, but SEVEN. That might be a few too many. I like keeping more than one thing going at a time so I can flit around between them all when I find I don't know where else to go.............but SEVEN and the smallest is 30 x 30"......so lots of visual conflict.

SO..it's a beautiful day so far so I better get into my painting clothes and out to the studio.

American Artist Series

If anyone out there has purchased my work as a giclee from American Artist Series, please contact me as I have some questions of you.

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Bee Season at the Texas Discovery Gardens

At the Texas Discovery Gardens, Bee Season - Dallas News - Unfair Park (http://ping.fm/TAgAa)

I have been running like mad for a month. I went today over to Shreveport to trade out paintings with my gallery (Brunner Gallery) in Covington, LA.

But, got home and found this wonderful little review of the TX WAX -Dallas show that opened on the 4th.......and a little mention of my work from the "Paved Paradise series" included in the show. I was out of town when it opened. I know the group did a fantastic job of hanging the work as usual so I look forward to getting back to Dallas later this month to see the show. It will remain up through the first of January 2010.

Global Swarming: An Exploration and Reflection of Colony Collapse Disorder | Texas Wax (http://ping.fm/UUhcF)

Encaustic Painter interviews at Encausikos (http://ping.fm/lllr0)

Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden (http://valleyhouse.com/)

If you don't want to waste your money...don't fly SW airlines Business Select. I did and I know it's not worth it.

It's a "Start with Red" day!

Looks like today is a 'start with red' day. I'm back to working on the two 36 x 36" canvases on the wall easel.Tired of waiting for painting payment to finalize. It will just have to wait while I paint since it's too late for shipping today anyway.

Texturizer (Nova Lightweight Texture paste) is on already and I started to pull out paint, thinking, "hum ..what undertone for this one?". Then I decided on Napthol Crimson.....good a color as any and it's transparent which I like in under-painting tones. Then on to the Cad yellow. Hum..kinda liked those first shapes. Why doesn't the end 'product' turn out as spontaneously? WELL.....it can't, of course, because you have to make a painting, not just play around when it comes down to it.

At first though...fun to just start somewhere, anywhere, color or a mark. This one started with color and may not have any resemblance to the beginnings when I finally finish with it. I like color under my neutrals.

Oh yeah....that sale finally completed............will ship tomorrow.

Hum...not a clue or maybe I should say too many...what am I taking to Santa Fe?

Mary Heilmann: Season 5 Preview (October 2009) | ArtBabble (http://ping.fm/SOEEE)

Testing the Ping.fm dashboard

Photographing Paintings

Hum....I don't like this photographing of long or tall skinny paintings. Out here at our new location, it is even worse since I don't have a set place to photograph. SO, call on your husband to hold them...thank goodness no more slides on felt and they can be cropped.

Well...I spoke too soon on that one as my program kept wanting to crop off the top of one of the panels when I applied the filter to straighten. I think I finally got it okay. However, a 12 x 72" diptych is not easily seen when you have to get back far enough to take it's photo. SO, I took a full length and separate ones of each panel.

I decided to title this diptych, Familiar-Unfamiliar. I started this painting some time ago. I kept staring at it ...just like the previous painting until I just couldn't stand it any longer. Fix it or cover it all up. It was 98% done or it would have to be re-painted. I was fortunate that it worked. My mantra again........Just DO it.

A wonderful new product!

I sat down to watch the weather since we finally have a little thunder and lightning in the area. Instead I found another one of those endless infomercials for "whatever" can make for a better life, more energy, and of course, not least...lose weight, and especially your tummy...or yeah, and throw in get rid of cellulite and wrinkles.

SO, I hit on a fabulous new way to make some money......Paint a painting, sculpt a new sculpture, etc that promises if you buy it and look at it every day in the morning, noon and night, you are guaranteed within 15 days to lose that middle, get more energy and have a wonderful, successful life. And this is free, all except you have to pay your small shipping and handling charge...oh yeah, it (new small paintings/artwork) will be automatically be sent to you quarterly so you can renew all this wonderful effect on your mind and body.

Anyone want to help me develop this wonderful new product?

Finished painting

Little Pieces of Land 31
acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 48 x 36"

I finally got the painting photographed outside today. Here is the finished painting from the demo of the past few days.

Painting demo without video continued.........

Okay.......so I went up to the studio. This time I just eyed that darn video cam and left it alone. I started working on the painting again 'cause as anyone familiar with acrylic knows, it can 'die' on you overnight even if you thought you were so brilliant the day before.

Before more paint........



I decided the part above what could be called the horizon line needed more paint, something. So I set to work and quickly added some more.



Oops....not the right feeling here...off in color. I am not sure about all that gray in the bottom left either. There is more here and there throughout the painting, but from a distance something may be needed. I have to guard against getting things TOO balanced though. Anyway...this layer is not right. What to do, what to do!


The only thing you can, just DO IT. If it's wrong, do it again until something looks better. You can always paint over it. Layers only add to the feeling of good paint quality with this kind of work.


SO..........this is what I ended up with....for now...the gray stays although there are some subtle changes not too noticeable in this picture. Looks like another "Little Pieces of Land" painting to me. Nothing wrong with them, but I have done quite a few (31) and none of them small. Maybe it's time for a good talk with myself about where I'm going from here.

Painting and stuff!

So much for stretching my brain cells. I bought the little Flip video camera thinking I could take short clips of me working to post on the blog. HOWEVER, no one wants to see me just standing there mixing paint out of sight for all this time in between putting the paint on the canvas. It is supposed to be SO easy to clip out little parts but for the life of me I can't get it to do it. and still leave the parts I want to leave. The videos are too long for Utube unless they are 10 minutes or less. I'd planned on having several 10 minute ones. Oh well...the best laid plans don't always work out. Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 has me completely overwhelmed. Too much time has been devoted to trying to cut/edit and figure out how to do all this stuff. I could have painted two large paintings.

There are several things to think of when you video.....or for me anyway. I talk to myself, I sing and hum and dance around when I'm in a good mood painting. I listen to music. Now how can a person do all this for a video cam I ask you?? SO, on the first one I talked some but you can't really hear me well. On this one, I didn't talk but turned up my stereo....can't really hear that either in the other room on the video. The powers that be would sue me if I put any of the music I listen to on my video since it is copyrighted. What's a person to do and still make the whole thing authentic?

Oh yeah...and my friend Pat said she didn't want to hear music anyway, she wanted to know what I was thinking. SO, must I tell everyone, that the best painting days, you don't really 'think' consciously, you paint and you 'know' what you are doing or you stumble upon the answer as you go along? Now I'm not saying I can't tell you what I'm doing some of the time....that's what all that talking to myself is all about. I tell myself when it's working or not working so to speak.

So much of my grumbling. Here are a couple of pictures....... one of my palette. This is about what it usually looks like except sometimes I have special mixtures for some paintings...or also a couple of these palettes and little dishes of large neutral colors when working on especially large paintings. This one is only 40 x 30".





I can't show the beginning since it's on the video..I cut a still but can't get it out of the program :>(. But, it was a textured canvas that I slopped a lot of leftover paint on as I was leaving Colony some months ago and didn't get back to. It had a basic feel of a landscape though but the colors didn't work.......so I used it for my tone.

Step 1 (that I can show you)..... Now that I look at it, except for that pinky color...not too bad. First though I drew in some lines with willow charcoal to give me a starting place.





I just kept adding paint...acrylic dries fast.





This is a picture of the top of the painting made yesterday..............this might actually be the best for the whole thing but I can't cut the canvas down like a piece of paper.




This might be all I can get in one post so I will post the changes made today.............tomorrow unless something keeps me from it.

To be continued......HUMMM, does anyone know how big a video file Blogger will allow?

Meltdown Exhibit

With the kind of weather we have been having here in Texas, this show's title is certainly appropriate. If you get a chance, come by the opening or closing receptions of this show by members of TX WAX-Dallas at the Art Hotel Gallery.

More waxing

I bought a little FLIP Ultra video cam last week. I don't really have a clue how to work it yet. The first video I made I turned it sideways to get in more field of vision but then had the devil of a time figuring out in a program how to turn it vertical again. Finally, I figured it was just taking too much time for now learning how to cut and edit so much of it for YouTube. So you can't see the first part of the demo of working on the paintings I showed you in the previous post. SO, I made two little short ones from another angle and left as much of ME out of it as I could. I have no idea who that old fat woman is in the video. (smile) Anyway, it was hot in my studio kitchen...good place for hot wax, huh! I'm also uploading the two 12 x 12" panels that I'm titling They Paved Paradise 1 & 2 since I got some of my inspiration from that old song, Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YlRpOZ3J_M



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5CdF_nmY5Q

Waxing Day

It wasn't too long a day in the studio. However, the time spent was fruitful...although it got hot with all the wax medium making and the palettes heated up. Almost 100 degree heat and hot palettes...yow!

I started working on two small panels for the Global Swarming show the other day and just had to wing it on what I was going to do next.

Months ago I was driving down the road and I heard the old Joni Mitchell song..."Big Yellow Taxi". It hit me like a ton of bricks..maybe I could use some of the lyrics as a part of my work for the Global Swarming show. I DON'T DO THEMES....I keep saying. Anyway...I have to for this show. So last week some of us worked on a couple of collaboration pieces but I still had to do a few of my individual pieces.

These pictures are about a 1/3 - 1/2 of the way into the process probably. ...maybe more.

I used collage papers and some of the lyrics.... "Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples ..But LEAVE me the birds and the bees, Please!" along with others like... "Don’t it always seem to go That you don't know what you’ve got ‘Til it's gone. They paved paradise And put up a parking lot."
Okay.......so it's cheesy...but that's all the ideas I have on themes. I just do what I do with paint and collage and hope it will work out.

Collaboration pictures

Carolyn sent me a couple of snipped pics from the video of all three of us working on our Collaboration for the Global Swarming show.