Tuesday, March 9, 2010

4 panel Encaustic painting, finished!

It's finished....I think!. As far as I can tell it's finished although I might come back in a day or two and see little places that might be adjusted for some reason.

I had to remove one quote in the upper part. ....I decided since this was turning into an Umbria/Tuscany trip painting, I would title it, "The Green Heart of Italy", so I put that in the top over the other writing. The finished painting is 4 panels, 36 x 48" total.

Monday, March 8, 2010

4 panel Encaustic painting progress

I'm finally making progress on the 4 panel painting..........collage, mixed media, encaustic. As mentioned earlier I noticed the panels are actually about 1/4" off so I can't turn them every which way to line them up as I thought I might be able to do. SO....they are definitely vertically oriented although the finished piece will  be horizontal.

Last time I worked on these before the week-end, I left the studio thinking it was a good thing the last work flowed for me since this one is being a little more contrary. I really don't know where I'm going. Sometimes I like that...well really, I mostly always like that. BUT, some parts of some processes don't and they demand you either know what you are doing, or be ready to go with whatever happens...and heck, cover it up if it doesn't work out. SO, I'm giving it up to all the higher powers to guide me through this work.

I first just put medium on all the panels after I marked here and there all over the pieces with Conte. I had been rummaging through my junk, collage stuff and found some quotes that sounded interesting to include. So I added them to the panels...two of them, anyway. This is best done before adding the medium as you can't write with the usual pencils or chalks on top of the medium. (This is what I mean about knowing where you're going). Of course, as I applied the medium I changed my mind where the two with the writing would go.

I started tossing out a lot of papers..and pieces of junk I collected on trips. I just kept tearing and cutting the pieces of paper out and laying them down. Now...nothing really looked good or showed promise at all in my estimation.

 

This is a section of the farthest left panel before I applied medium to the papers lying there.

 

These sections are the ones to the farthest right. Yeah....there is my Umbrella pine again....I've used it several times...this is the first time I've used my photo as a transfer and I also added some to it. I have some other collaged elements from that same trip.  So far there is not much encaustic paint on TOP of the collaged elements. First I lay down the pieces and then I have to just decide to add the medium over and fuse them. If it doesn't work out, I can heat it up and move it or paint over it later. I have to say...working with wax and collage elements is easier in that they don't go blowing and moving around quite so easily as doing them on paper with acrylic medium. BUT you can easily almost cover up what you want to remain so you have to be careful in some areas.....or do a lot of scraping back.


 

Now I have some encaustic paints starting to build up on the far right panel and some into the one to its left.

 

Parts of the far left panel.... nore work to be done and medium and fusing to do here.

 

I got back and held the camera up as far as I could. I was tempted to climb on a chair but my good sense returned and I put the chair back...nothing like falling down and then hurting myself for a picture of a work in progress.
This is how I left it at the end of the day. Can't keep working as hubby will be wondering if I've deserted him...and especially his dinner......Humm..what's that dinner going to be?

Thursday, March 4, 2010

On to the next painting session

On to the next painting...and a snafu or two. Today, I turned the old wooden drawing table over to see if I could raise it up a little more..............yaay, it seems I can. This is a lot better for collaged encaustic work...or any collage for that matter as it is much more exactly for placement of the elements.

I opened up my last box of panels... 4, 12 x 36" ones from CheapJoes. They are the extra deep prime panels and I like them a lot. However, in this instance, I noticed a snafu here when I laid them out on the table. I thought I would line them all up and work as a whole multiple...either verticle or horizontal...no matter. However, lining them up I began to see other possibilities UNTIL I noted that the one on the end placed vertically lined up next to the other three laying out horizontally didn't line up exactly. Finally, I measured and these panels are all the same size but they are 1/4 inch short of 36" SO, I can't play around with all the arranging I thought might be fun to do.  Bummer. Guess I'll just go back to the first impulse and line them all up going the same way.

This is something to remember in case I ever do want to do the other arrangement sometime to make a little change-up in panel orientation in the future.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Encaustic Diptych Finished

 


Some days, things just work themselves out. Today was such a day. I added some more paint, wax, papers, fused and decided it just didn't need any more work.

The title of this piece is "People Say". The reason for the title.......it's part of the quote included in the text/writing on the painting. The size is a total of 24 x 36" for both panels.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

New mixed media diptych started

Today I started working more on the new encaustic mixed media diptych. I got out the panels yesterday...both 24 x 18"....so the two will measure 24 x 36 like the last piece I did....only in two parts.

I laid out some papers I had after scrounging around in all my papers. Then I decided I didn't want the color of the wood to interfere in the relationships of the color or non-color. So I got out the encaustic gesso again......Holy Grail and then had to wait for it to dry. Today in the humidity, it took longer than usual. I fished around in all my mark marking crayons and pencils and found some pastels and that sort of thing. I made marks randomly after taking some papers off the panels. I did a little writing that might or might not be there when I get through across the tops of both panels. I don't like to be able to read the whole thing although I don't mind a few words here and there.

After taking all the papers off I hit the whole surface of both panels with clear encaustic medium and fused them. Then I got the papers back out and laid them down again. they never go back where you started...but that's okay in this instance. As you note the pieces look light. When you start laying the medium to them they will darken. SO, although I know they will be darker, I just go with it and put them down anyway. I will have to work with the relationships of the values and colors as they develop.





I went looking through all my papers again and found a drawing I did a gazillion years ago of an old elm tree. I don't remember if it is charcoal or graphite but I tried the transfer method and it worked great without having to wet the paper........I just rubbed the dickens out of the back of the paper and it went into the wax.

By the end of the afternoon, I had this to show for all the relationships and fusing...........






SO...I'll be back tomorrow to work on this some more....

Better photo of finished encaustic

I think this is a better photo of the finished 24 x 36" encaustic I posted yesterday.   Title will have something to do with Colors....I think.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Winding down on the latest encaustic painting

 

I've been back for two more sessions working on this latest encaustic painting. Before today I was a little concerned about too much texture over all the panel. Now I have heated carefully, let cool a little and scraped over and over (thanks, Hylla, for the tips). I think now it has smoother areas to play against the texture....at least when you run your hand over it. This photo makes the sky look a little light to me now. I will just have to get more accurate photos later. There really is a touch of that ochre in the upper plane along with the pale, grayed blue violet.

Another thing that had been bothering me (and still does as a small thumbnail).......the greenish ochre areas in the foreground looked too much like big splotches. I now have and smoothed them out some and spread the color a little more across that plane. It might could do with a little more coolness possibly but it works okay this way as well since the warm advances.

I'll have to think about a title  although this is making me think desert, colors of the southwest, etc. Any suggestions? I  hate to title something too explicitly without a real gut feeling about it that is authentic.

Back to Hylla.......she is Hylla of EvansEncaustics.com. She is a peach and gave me some tips for the smoothing down of some of these textured areas. She also makes gorgeous encaustic paint and medium. Give them a try, I think you'll like them. Oh yeah....and it was her Holy Grail encaustic gesso I used at the first of this painting.