Monday, November 30, 2009

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.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

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.

Friday, November 27, 2009

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.

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.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

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".

Monday, November 2, 2009

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.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

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.