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.

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.

Now I get it!

I was lucky enough to assist at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for Lisa Pressman. The class was a week long and very fun. She is an artist working in cold wax, oil and encaustic from New Jersey. I loved her teaching style and her work. Please check out her website  lisapressman.net, The class was painting with encaustic and my job was to mix medium and lend a hand when necessary. I also had the privilege of working on my own paintings in encaustic, as well as cold wax, and will post the "in process" works in the next post.

For now I am very excited about the cold wax and oil process. After Lisa gave me a personal demo and shared her materials and knowledge with me I feel I have a much better understanding of how it works. Letting the work dry was the only challenge to me as I  love to work fast. Working on many of them at one time helps. Below are some in process works that I did during the week that I can't wait to work on and finish. These are STARTS and need many more layers and fine tuning before they will be paintings! Most are on 12x12 cradled encaustic board from Ampersand and have a nice surface. They come in different size cradle depths.

The scratching and texturing was done with a sharp skewer and the layers are put on with

a print making brayer or squeegee. Revealing all the colors underneath is the most fun!

A New Road, and a new direction

Because I have been reintroduced to oil paint, through encaustic painting, and have been perusing any technique that uses oil paint, I have come upon something new that I must try.

Oil and Cold Wax, unlike encaustic wax is not heated, or melted and does not have to be fused between each layer. Although it does have to dry to the touch between layers. Basically oil paint is mixed with a wax medium with a palate knife to make the paint thicker and more textured.

A wonderful abstract artist that works in cold wax and one that I admire is Rebecca Crowell. Her site and blog oilandwax.ning.com has a wealth of information, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in learning about it.

I started right in and have done a few artworks to share. It is a very forgiving medium as you can paint over a painting a thousand times. Which for me is somewhat of an issue as I never know when a painting is finished. 

This is the very first attempt and I really like the vibrant colors. I didn't get as much texture as I wanted. I either need more layers or I let it dry too long (overnight) so the scratching didn't show up.

Cocoon
12" X 12"

.

This attempt has much more paint, and it really was fun to scribble on the surface. I pushed a piece of plastic mesh from a grocery bag of oranges into the surface in the upper left and middle right. It makes a very nice diamond texture. On the right side I pushed a gold oil pigment stick into the pattern when it was dry.

Falling
6"  X  6"

These 2 paintings have thin coatings of wax and oil, then I let them dry well, and went back into them with oil pigment sticks and turpentine. I am enjoying working with oil and Dorland's wax medium and I plan to keep experimenting and will share work as I go along. Both are painted on 12" X 12" cradled board.

Olive Trees

Olive Trees
8" x 8"

This piece was inspired by a recent trip to Italy during harvest time.
There were so many beautiful fields of Olive Trees everywhere. They look, "oh so delicious", ripe and juicy, ready to be eaten. But don't eat one off the tree, they are not delicious at all. They are very bitter. Ha, ha ha,we learned the hard way.
The technique I used on this painting is called incising and each of those thin lines are made with a sharp needle tool, another clay tool, that works well in wax.
To make the line black, an oil stick in pushed into the recesses, let dry and buffed away.  Tube oil paint can also be used, but must be exposed to the air for several hours to thicken, then used.
This painting was donated to Arrowmont School of Art, in Gatlinburg for Auction. It's a beautiful campus here offering a wide variety of classes in all mediums.

Working with a hot palette

Working on an encaustic collage

The image of the bird in this painting is an image transfer on wax. Transfers on wax are so

simple to do. A copy of the image is made on a toner copy machine. The image appears in the reverse, so if there is any text it will have to be reversed before copied. The image is then turned face down and pressed to the surface. A wooden spoon or burnishing tool is now used to press the image into the wax. The back of the image is dampened with water and let rest for 3-4 minutes.  Begin rubbing gently with fingertips in a circular motion until all the paper pulp is removed. The toner ink image is left. See below for the finished painting.

Urban Landscape
22" x 22"

Sunflowers
6" x 6"

Carolina Wetlands
18" x 18"

Plumage 8" x  8" 

Taking Encaustics Outside the Box

Nancy Natale

This painting is a collage of papers that have been dipped and painted with encaustic paint. Nancy works with old book spines, found and painted papers, and collage.

Lorraine Glessner
One of the things that draw me to this artists work is her delicate use of line. She uses long strands of human hair collaged under the encaustic medium to achieve this technique.

Brenda Mallory Capsules, 2006-2011,
 Waxed cloth, nuts, bolts, 11 units, each 10" x 10" x 17"

Beautiful three dimensional cloth objects can be encased in wax to give strength to an encaustic piece

Exciting texture can be added by imbedding paper and cloth into the surface. The wax also acts as an adhesive if heavier objects are to be imbedded, and they need not be completely submerged in the wax.

Perfect Specimens, Encaustic Collage
Lynn Corsi Bland

Exquisite detail can be achieved by transfering a photo copied image directly to the surface of the wax. The lines were drawn on the wax with a sharp needle and then filled in with black oil pastel.

Lynn Corsi Bland
encaustic and oil pastel


Another method to add drawing and line work like this piece, is to start with a drawing on paper. Watercolor paper is collaged to the surface of the board and the sketching is done on the paper before the wax is added with oil pastel. The painting can be completed using pigmented encaustic paint. 

The artists for these beeswax pieces are anonymous, but they show us the grace and beauty that nature gives us everyday. We, as artists, try, but the perfection evidenced here cannot be duplicated.

Encaustic Collage

Artist:	Bascha Mon
Title:	ADRIFT
Medium:	ENCAUSTIC AND COLLAGE ON PAPER
Size:	22 x 30 inches

These collages are from the Tsunami Series and are heavily layered and impressive in size. This is an example of an artist expressing her sorrow through her art. Creating something beautiful out of a horrific natural disaster.

Artist:  Bascha Mon Title:  Searching For Paradise (Lost?) Medium:  encaustic & collage on paper Size:  30 x 22 inches

Artist:	Bascha Mon
Title:	Searching For Paradise (Lost?)
Medium:	encaustic & collage on paper
Size:	30 x 22 inches

Artist: 

Bascha Mon

Title: 

Searching For Paradise (Lost?)

Medium: 

encaustic & collage on paper

Size: 

30 x 22 inches

To see more work by this artist, please visit her website with this link:http://www.neoimages.net/artistportfolio.aspx?pid=3339

Encaustic Vessel

This graceful form by Katherine Glover is a three dimensional encaustic piece.
Her vessel is a combination of pleated silk and encaustic medium and was chosen for the Encaustic 2009 Juried Exhibit.  To view this show or find out more about encaustic paints, and the upcoming Encaustic 2011 call for entries visit this link:   rfpaints.com

 Visit Katherine's website to see more of her work  

http://www.katherineglover.com/gallery/encaustic.html

A Unique Approach to Encaustic Painting

Laura Moriarty

 These examples of artist Laura Moriarty's work show her approach to painting with beeswax.

This example of Laura's work is an encaustic monoprint on paper. The blending of the deep colors and softness of her edges is quite a contrast to her heavily carved pieces below.

Detail of Painting Below

Accretionary Wedge

 In the painting above she paints many layers and then carves back into the wax creating a multi-dimensional surface. 

To view more of her work visit her website  http://www.lauramoriarty.com/

Artists working in Beeswax

Spirit of Motion by Lisa Pressman from her website

This painting by Lisa Pressman is a 24 x 24 encaustic work. I love the way she uses the soft line work to define the composition,

 by Judy Wise from her website

These works by Judy Wise are 6 X 8. The dark, vibrant colors in these paintings are what drew me to them.

Getting A Little Fresh Air

My portable studio

Painting outdoors is great, as the lighting is fantastic and I don't have to worry about breathing any wax fumes.
There is an abundance of fresh, spring air for me to breathe.

My Inspiring View

Paper is a great porous surface to paint on when using wax. I am working on small 6x8 pieces of masonite with watercolor paper glued to the surface. The glue I use is white PVA and works very well, although care should be taken not to get any glue on the paper, since it is a plastic based adhesive. I press these under heavy books and wait 24 hours before painting.

I like to break up the surface of the white paper before I begin with the first layer of wax. I have used a shiva oil paint stick to draw lines. A sharpie marker, india ink or oil pastels also work well for drawing. It is important to remember not to use any acrylic paints or inks.

Under painting

On this one I have used watercolors to break up the surface with an under painting of color blocks. 

Imagery can be added after the wax has been applied as in the work above. The insect is a transfer I made with a toner copy. A thin layer of clear medium is brushed on the transfer.

I added these lines with a sharpie on top of the wax. A layer of clear encaustic medium is brushed over the surface, this will keep the marker from rubbing off. I love the way it always smears a little and softens the look of the line.

Back to Wax

In Process

oil sticks for drawing

Many brilliant colors to choose from. These are small blocks  of concentrated pigments suspended in encaustic medium.

The wax is heated to 250 degrees and becomes liquid. The thermometer sits directly on the heated palette so I can monitor it during painting.

The Paint

Warm and Ready




 

The Laboratory