Encaustic continued

 The crashing of my computer and the crashing of the waves from hurricane Matthew delayed me a bit, but I am back and ready to start painting.

At this point I have decided to change the orientation. So I flip it upside down and like it better this way.



I am trying out this strip of black and white paper as a possible collage element. I add surface interest by scratching and drawing.

I am still trying this strip of black and white paper, this is a longer piece Now to add more color. I mixed this beautiful shade of coral and love the way it looks with the blue.

Notice the small black dots in the upper right These dots are made with an electric encaustic stylus. It is a wonderful tool for drawing fine precise line. It has a caligraphy nib and draws up the hot wax.
At this point I'm removing the strip of black and white and have decided not to use it.



In the detail below, I have added a rubbing of carbon paper over the blue square to tone the brightness
down. I add some drawing with a china pencil and small dots with an encaustic stylus.







The yellow lines are made by painting over the yellow and then digging into the surface to show the color underneath. This is why so many layers are built up.





This grid is drawn on with carbon paper.



To finish I have added a few more color layers, and I scrape the surface as I go with a single edge razor blade. This makes the surface flat. I collage strip of my hand painted paper as a finishing touch.
This is a 12" by 12"encaustic painting on a cradled board and it is for sale in my etsy store. Please visit:  notsobland.etsy.com  


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Part 2 of my process

The first layer of color is now applied, and I am laying out my composition.  I work in geometric blocks of color for this layer mainly to try color combinations and see how they work with each other. 

I vary the sizes and intensity of the blocks.

I

The indian yellow has been mixed with a 50/50 portion of encaustic medium to make a transparent glaze. I wanted to keep the marks on the underpainting. The gray portions are left opaque.

There aren't many ways to mark on the wax but I have found that india ink can be used if its applied thick enough. The  marks in the middle section are made with ink. I also have a hot stylus tool that uses encaustic paint and the small dots in the lower right are made with this tool.

detail of the india ink on the wax surface

I add more blocks of color to the composition. Some of the underpainting is being hidden. I painted a brighter blue over the large navy block and let some of the dark underneath show through. I am now working with all opaque colors. I have taken a sharp tool and scratched through the surface in some places to let the layers come through.

I will let this "rest" until I decide what comes next. My paintings can consist of 10 layers or more.

I really love the way the colors can be made transparent so they change slightly when layered over another. I could add some collage at this point or add a layer of clear medium. I will add the clear over marks that I want to keep so they don't float during fusing. Every time a new layer is applied the torch or heatgun is used to adhere the new layer to the old ones.

A Look at my process

I have recently become a fan of instagram. So many visual treats to excite the senses. I am hooked and hope you will follow me. My handle is just my name, all three of them: lynncorsibland

After posting a few photos of my process when creating an encaustic painting I got a great response, so I thought I'd try it here on my blog.

I thought it might be interesting to document each step as I build up the layers of an encaustic painting.
One painting can have as many as 20, with others only 10 to 12. The first layer is always the gesso and I like to cover my boards myself. If I'm in a mood to work textured I can easily create a few bumps and dips to make it suit me.
The gesso is a very special porous one made specifically for painting with encaustic medium. The surface must be very porous to absorb the wax. Acrylic gesso WILL NOT work. It has a polymer base which is plastic and works as a sealer. I order mine from RFPaints. Some artists paint directly on the raw wood, this works well, and saves a step, but I like the bright white surface.

Here is my board with 2 layers of gesso, and one of india ink loosely painted with a small brush.

I always break up my surface with some type of marks. I get ideas and inspiration as I look at the marks I've drawn.

The next two layers are clear encaustic medium with no pigments added. Even if I want a textured piece I scrape the surface with a razor blade on these early layers. I now have 4 layers and haven't really begun to paint.


I don't plan my colors at the beginning. I like to intuitively look at those lovely colors of hot
wax and randomly choose. These first few layers will covered over so any colors will do. It's
a nice surprise sometimes as I'm scraping through layers to find a wild color combo that I
just love. This is the beauty of the encaustic process.  After a few more colorful layers it's time
to get serious. I move the colors that I plan to use and put them to one side of my palette.

I really like the way this blue and coral look side by side on my palette. So these will be a good starting point. I'll continue my demo on the next blog post.

Here is what I did at Penland!

I did finish a few paintings, in between making medium, and listening to all the wonderful
demos Lisa gave us. She is a very generous teacher with her techniques.

One of the exercises she gave the class was a challenge to do a series of small studies using black and  white with shades of gray in between. I was intrigued and thought I would try it also. These are my results.

























I will share more of my work in the next post.

And More from Penland

As I said, we had two artists to a station, and we faced each other and shared the ventilation duct.
My art mate was Cynthia Burroughs and this is her gorgeous work. She is a painter from SC and as I watched her work these beautiful colors just flowed out of her. It was such a pleasure getting to know this very talented lady. She is also a published fiction writer and her book, ""Remember Della" is available from Amazon.

The Work from Penland March 27 - April 2

This is a beautiful group of encaustic paintings. Thanks to all of you for the hard work!

 

The Penland Adventure

After hearing so much about Penland School of Art I finally got the chance to go as a studio assistant.
My friend Lisa Pressman, encaustic artist extraordinaire, asked me to assist her there after assisting her at Arrowmont in 2014.  She had also invited Cherie Mittenthal the director of Casselhill School of the Arts.There were two of us assisting which made it much less work and a lot more fun!

So after packing up way more than I could use, I jumped in my car and headed that way. Penland is located about in the NC mountains and the gps took me through a lot of back roads and beautiful scenery.

After checking in I couldn't wait to see our workspace. I had heard we were in the "new" building.




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And not only was it new but it was amazing!Check out the ventilation system in this photo.



There were two workstations facing eachother and a ventilator between us to hover over our pallettes.




This is of course before the students arrived and we messed it up!





Busy Busy Busy!



The view from our studio porch. We were on the second floor.

The dining hall

The Welcoming committee. Classes started on the eve of Easter. There was an egg hunt, community brunch, and bonnet and costume contests. Wrapping up with a huge bonfire on the grounds behind the dining hall. Such a fun day!

Let the art begin:

The underpainting





Lisa's demo on making the underpainting, or "history"
She uses india ink, encaustic paint and medium, woodies,
made by stabilo and( yes they can and will write on a
wax surface), graphite.


Stay tuned for the work!

A Glimpse Inside My Creative Space

I wanted to share my true creative space, so, I did not clean up, or stage any of the photos I am about to share. Ha, I'm sure you will be aware of this fact immediately. Yes, I am messy and work best when everything is in plain view and within my reach. So, that being said.....

Here is one of the shelf areas I have for displaying the things that are inspiring me at the moment.

Lots of wire shelving for storage, and a spot for my printer.

 

My drawing board. This a great one as it can go completely flat for watercolor. My  journal is open

A bit of nostalgia thrown in for humor. My solo show poster for graduation, the year has to be wrong!






A pegboard is always a handy way to have your tools at the ready.






These are the skylights above my paint station.






A view of my encaustic area.






I have plenty of electricity for my hot palettes and irons and a magnetic strip for all the colors I use.





My collection of wax pigments to use in the creation of the encaustic paints.
I just returned from an encaustics class where I was the studio assistant for friend and artist Lisa Pressman. I will devote my next post to my experiences at Penland, NC with her. And also elaborate more on the encaustic space I have, and how I mix medium and my paints.