Thursday, April 23, 2009

Retreat update



Almost time for Happy Hour.............but I wanted to post a couple of paintings I've been working on here at MsArtColony. Wonderful session. Time is flying by.

Got to tell the story about the first one ...gray one. I decided to get away from some of my comfort zones and not tone my canvas or draw anything at all in with charcoal. I used paint from a palette that was drying up and I thought I would get some imagery from something there in the studio. SO, I decided to paint Larry at the easel.......great shapes there I thought. SO I got all ready to go, dipped my brush in dark paint, looked up and Larry had vanished. So I just painted the 'empty easel'. I guess no one but me or one of my studio mates would know but I KNOW. Guess that's a close to a figure as I'm gonna get.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Encaustic work progress


I got some work done today in the studio on that 24 x 24" encaustic I had going. It has more cohesiveness now. Who knows what I will do or not next? I'll mull it over. The photo isn't that great....it came out dark and with too much of a sienna cast so I manually fiddled with it in PSP but I'm not that good at working with images like this. It's rainy, stormy, dark today so I won't take a real shot of it until I'm sure it's finished and I have a good day outside to shoot it.

I should be gathering all my stuff for colony.........I'm just a slug to day so I haven't done much but pile up some stuff. I think I'll run to Dallas tomorrow with Carolyn my art buddy in the next town.....go to TX WAX Dallas meeting at the new encaustic center two members have opened there in Richardson. Guess then I'll HAVE to get to work loading stuff as Monday is the last day for all this.

Wheee.....then off to Colony bright and early Tuesday morning to paint and talk up a lot of art for the rest of the week.

Listening to the Eagles........Long Road Out of Eden.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Update on Wax Easel




I finally found that old wooden watercolor board portable easel a friend's husband made me so long ago. I have used it before when working on collage and my neck would hurt bending over too much.....why not for encaustic as well!

It does slant but not as much as a full easel and I can move it and lay my boards flat when needed.

If I want to go all out with uncontrolled drips, I can just put it on the old Stanrite metal easel...............yaaay!

Can't work today to see how it will go and will be gone tomorrow all day...........but Wednesday, I'm gonna try this all out as I can definitely see a lot needs work now that I have that photo up on the easel.

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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Happy Easter

It's not until tomorrow but I might get busy and forget to wish all a
HAPPY EASTER!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Afternoon in the studio.....






It was afternoon before I could get up to the studio to start working on more 'wax painting'. Too much time spent trying to "tweet". My DH took a nap while I was upstairs....kept wondering what that 'tweet" sound was...TweetDeck, of course. He thinks I've lost my mind...maybe I have.

I have no idea what I did this afternoon, but I just kept adding wax medium, paints and paint sticks, then burnishing them with my little iron or heat gun. It took some time but I've got some layers going here. I need to raise my worktable. Deanna Wood sent me some photos of the blocks some people use ...I've seen these at my art colony. I think it would work but then I have all those cords that are slightly shorter than you would like when it comes to extending your work area. I'll mull it over. ..or maybe tilt some of the work up when it doesn't matter if it's flat.

More later.....

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Setting up the studio wax work-station





If this set-up looks a little make-shift, that's because it is. I know I will never get any encaustic paintings done if I have to keep setting up and taking down from my main work table in the painting room of the studio. I needed a special place, pretty or not, to work so I can pick up and put down as time allows.

SO, I took the old hollow core 80" door off between the living-room/storage part of the studio and the canvas painting room part of the studio. It was in the way any way and was the only door with no panels so it would be flat. The hinges and doorknob are left on in case I ever want to put it back up. I set it on the small kitchen table and I covered it with heavy construction site paper. I moved the old porcelain topped cabinet my m-i-l used to have a toaster oven on over next to the table. I put as much encaustic paint and wax medium etc in all the drawers as I could get in and will have to try out the set up to see what needs changing on down the line. I had to bring in a heavy duty extension cord and multiple plug set up for all the plugs.........this IS a problem with all the connections you have to make painting with wax. You note that I have my fan set up for exhausting out any fumes. I have a few shelves that I will put some implements on. I ordered one of those heat regulators and a brass brush and the flow control tool, etc. Now to get back used to working with just wax before trying them out.

Just to try things out a little, I pulled out the other 24 x 24" home-made panel from long ago. It was covered with canvas. From my other problem with canvas coming loose when only stretched and stapled on the sides, I decided to take it off the board and put on some plain beeswax and then put it all back on and maybe then it would stay attached better to the board when all the wax paint starts to build up. It took some time to get it off....seems like this one must have been better attached than that other one that no wax had seeped through. By the time I got it off it was all folded into a weird shaped I set aside until I could get some wax layers down on the bare board. I forgot how time consuming this is........and how much my neck and or back would start aching from leaning over. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY TIPS TO PREVENT THIS ACHING NECK THING?......please let me know.

I think I finally have it fairly well straightened out now and 'glued' down with wax. I'll smooth it out some next time and start thinking of what I want to do with this panel.

One thing is pretty much decided now after two home-made panels covered with canvas.............I don't like doing this prep so I think I will go back to working on a plain panel or one with paper glued to the surface. Also......no money saved as then you have to frame these suckers as the sides don't look great like the nice 2" deep panels.









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Thursday, April 2, 2009

WHAT A DAY! and a painting


I got ready to go up to the studio and just as I got all ready to paint, the electricity went out. I called the electric company about 11am and it came on for 15 minutes about 5:30pm....then out again as I was trying to work on a digital image. Now it's back on ......7:30pm but I waited a while to turn the poor mistreated computer back on.

I went ahead and painted and then took the pictures earlier..........here is the work as it stands...40 x 50" so I wasn't too thrilled with just wiping it out so I kept working. YOU tell me what you think. Trees and plant/organic life shows up in my work all the time but this might be getting to be too much for me. It's kinda on the edge of realistic and abstraction and I'm not really sure if it works or is too much realism.

Oh yeah.........the outage was due to terrible winds...we thought they were almost as bad as when Ike came through here but no rain....weird. I need to go check the weather patterns to see if more is in store.

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