Saturday, January 16, 2010

- Johnson Creek Studio - Cheryl D. McClure http://ping.fm/tDhFK

Doodles



As mentioned previously, I brushed on a few layers of encaustic medium on five small 10 x 10" cradled boards the other day. Today, I thought  I would play around with the flow pen again with no expectations other than seeing how it works and getting used to the line it conveys. I'm used to doing this kind of thing........just mark making or doodling on canvas or paper and 'finding' the beginnings of a painting. I was kind of lost not being able to do this and just continually 'winging' it with brush loads of encaustic paint and medium.

I'm not complaining.... as being lost is sometimes a good thing. It can lead me to doing something and creating something  I wouldn't have ordinarily if I did more planning or if I was more comfortable with my materials. I also like being comfortable with my tools as that kind of familiarity leads to a kind of automatism I find attractive. AND, if you don't like it, just scrape it away or cover it up and you have a quality of surface by the time you work through it.

Today, I cut some small pieces of Ivory Black encaustic paint off to put in the pen to melt. I just started with a kind of a doodle and just made organic marks. Oh yeah.........before that I put a good layer of red that was in one of my paint cans across the top. No reason, just somewhere to start. A color and some black and whites in their various forms.

I used a lot smaller brush to work back into the lines, into and over some of them, varying the whites, pale gray, etc. I fused, I scraped and I added and scraped some more.

The light isn't that good but I do know one thing from taking pictures of the large piece, Almost Winter, that white  can really be tricky and look either not like white or too chalky. Gotta admit, in other mediums this happens as well but it seems like with encaustic it shows more in the photos. Something will have to be done about that.

This is for want of a title........Doodles 1. I think I may play around with this flow pen and the doodles some more on the other small panels.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

- Johnson Creek Studio - Cheryl D. McClure: Encaustic Collage..almost completed http://ping.fm/ncB1q

Encaustic Collage..almost completed



I didn't work for very long on this painting today. I played arounnd with adding some linear work with the flow-pen tool, and added some more medium, fusing and scraping some as I went along.

When I reached this point I couldn't figure out anything more that would add to it without overdoing it. SO, I quit. It's possible something else will come to me...but I don't see it right now.

I'm also posting the close up of one of the areas of line work with the flow-pen.  this painting is certainly got a southwestern or western flavor to it. With the aerial maps, shapes and colors, I'm still considering a title with some of these elements.


Friday, January 8, 2010

Encaustic Collage, continued

I fired up all the wax today when I finally got up to the studio. At least we have heat up there plus the wax heat. Cold weather for days and the furnace goes out. That's always the way it goes. It will be next week before they get a new one here from the factory that fits our situation.

SO, on to working on the piece I started with the collage yesterday. I just kept pulling out more paper and tacking them down with more encaustic medium under the pieces...moving from one relationship of color and shape and size to another.

I'm now at this stage of the process on this one and will continue on tomorrow.




I really haven't a clue  where I'm going so I hope it turns into a good place. This image is a close up of the area upper off center.


Thursday, January 7, 2010

Encaustic Collage



I worked in the studio all afternoon until the wind howling ran me out. We're expecting 17 tonight...and that's way cooler than usual for northeastern Texas.

Today, I started working on the other 24 x 24" cradled board as I think the other one I posted last time needs some think and observation time before I proceed further.

This one already had a little beeswax on it so I started looking through collage papers that didn't already have acrylic or anything that couldn't absorb wax. I find that if I "think' about all this too much it just stifles me. So I just started throwing a lot of paper around and came across some aerial maps from my trip to Arizona a few years ago. The pilot (Mr I fly for art) gave me his old maps.




Working with these should be fun...but it doesn't matter if they are there and readable when I get through or not. Probably for sure I don't want them to be there TOO much and TOO readable. I got out other papers and then started laying them out. I didn't really 'see' that much so I figured I might as well go for it and it would come as it darn well wanted to. These paintings have a mind of their own. And if I don't like it, I can just melt it all off or cover it all up.

SO, I have part of maps, and a big piece of dark blue paper.  I cut some of the pieces of maps into strips and laid that down in places along the bottom. These strips and the blue do not have any wax on them yet............ I had to leave them all when I had to start closing down all the window blinds for the cold winds coming in.

This time I triple checked I turned off my encaustic medium that had finally gotten ready after being stirred what seemed like all afternoon.

We'll see how it goes next session........

Monday, January 4, 2010

- Johnson Creek Studio - Cheryl D. McClure http://ping.fm/SSh4H

Studio Time


Cropped/Close up almost is a whole painting in itself, huh!

Cowboy country....that's what I get to thinking as I get to work on this painting in the studio today. I've been playing around with the encaustic again. I'll continue to play some more as I have a show of encaustic coming up at the Encaustic Center in Richardson, TX  in April.

First this is.......I ordered some nifty tools from Fine Art Store Enkaustikos quite a long time ago and just haven't used them at all yet. I got a Flow tool...kind of like a batik pen, some hot point thingies and the regulator so they don;t burn everything up. Doncha just love all my real great descriptions and names for everything. Well.........I have to do this since I can't run all the way out and upstairs just to see the names of this stuff.

 


So... I played with the Flow Pen first. Well not exactly first, I did have to put something on that board beside some wax I laid down the other day. I rummaged into some collage stuff and tore some paper up and just started putting it down with wax. I know I may not be doing all this the right way (which might be the easiest way) but I'm bumbling along doing it as I figure it will work. I saturated the paper with wax and put it on the already waxed board. Then I fired up the Flow Pen with some wonderful orange paint they sent me as a bonus when I ordered the pen and whoa........this is great! You can make all kinds of little squiggly lines and dots with this thing. Only bad thing is my cord is kinda kinked and I'm trying to figure out how to not waste paint by laying it down the wrong way.



Mentioning kinks..........there are a ton of electric cords everywhere when you work with encaustic. There must be a better way to organize all this stuff but I haven't found it yet.

So...then that all looked fun but it is not a painting to make a lot of fun stuff playing around. I finally just had to start adding some more papers and then I added paint and on and on. At one point it made me think of all the fences here at the farm and the view down to the lake.......then I saw mountains which we do not have here although we have rolling hills. Oh well......who cares as all this will get layered over several times I imagine before it it is through.

Here are the in process pictures......and one up-close that looks like a mini-painting.



 

 

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Happy New Year TWENTY TEN

to celebrate the new year 2010, I decided this was as good a time as any to import/export my old blogspot blog from http://artstudio75604.blogspot.com/ to the new one to correctly designate my new location here on the farm.  The new blog is called Johnson Creek Studio - Cheryl D. McClure.

Hum...it seems to have imported all my old 300+ blog posts and comments but I will be testing it out. Oh my... I forgot to actually look to see what the new URL is. I think it should be http://www.johnsoncreekstudio.blogspot.com/  but I will check it out and make corrections if needed.

Oh yeah........back to the new name/title. I thought and thought about what to call this blog with our move over here from last year. I guess I was just talking with my husband about the place and it occurred to me that with this creek running across our property.......I even named a new painting with that title, that this is the perfect title for the blog.