Thursday, November 19, 2009

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.

7 comments:

  1. yay she's bloggin, painting AND recycling :)

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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...

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  5. 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...???

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  6. 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.

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  7. 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.

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