NEWEST OIL AND COLD WAX ARTWORK

Since my last post I have been busy working  on oil and wax paintings for a group show of regional artists at the Emporium Gallery. It is located on Gay Street in the historic art district in Knoxville. I love this open contemporary gallery, because it is full of light, and has abundant space for display. The opening was January 5th and will run through February 4th. The photos of my work did not come out as well as I would have liked, so I'll retake them, and then I will post the ones included in the exhibit. These are some new pieces I have done, and others that were not ready to include.

This series is all 12" x 12" cradled panels, 1 inch deep. The medium is traditional oil paints mixed with Dorland's Cold Wax Medium.

I used a palette knife to add the paint and after it dried to the touch I scratched through the paint with a sharp needle tool.

I used ink brayers and a 4' squeegee on this one, and scratched though to the various layers.

This is one of the Patera Series for the Emporium show, that was not ready. I had applied the paint very thick so it took a while to completely dry. Patera is a bowl or vessel used in ancient Rome for drinking or pouring.

This piece is painted on heavy 300 lb handmade watercolor paper with a deckle edge.  More paint is needed when painting on paper as the first layer gets absorbed, and the heavy texture of the paper leaves small white indentions where it is lower than the surface. The first coats were applied with a palette knife, then a brayer and squeegee. I did like the finished product very much and was able to scratch and remove paint in much the same way as on a wood panel.

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"

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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 in Wax

Looking at art has become an obsession with me lately and these encaustic pieces have caught my eye so I will share:

Semiotics
16" x 16"
Jann Gougeon

I find the composition in this work beautiful and the way she has juxtaposed the symbols a perfect contrast to the grid like background.

8" x 16"
Mary Philpot

For artists that love to draw, the beeswax medium works so well for detail. A sharp stylus, needle, nail or awl is used to incise the surface. Oil sticks or oil paint is then rubbed into the scratched surface. The result is amazing fine line work.

Not That Fragile
6" x 6"
Mary Black

Encaustic with collage always works for me. So much to look at and contemplate.

Dunkel
Mark Perlman

Another colorful approach to painting with beeswax. A very nice geometric design.

What I'm working on this month

I would like to share some of my work in progress, something I haven't done in the past but feel it might be a good way for me to document what I've done. I hope it will help me grow and develop and show me when a painting is completed. 

These are acrylics combined with collage, since it's gotten cold here and my wax area is not heated, I'm inside where it is warm. I would love to be able to use some beeswax with these mixed media pieces, but acrylic and wax to not mix and cannot be combined. Oil paint is the only paint that works, but for me it takes too long to dry. I am an impatient and spontaneous artist!

Ink and paint underdrawing

I have covered most of my drawings with paint

These paintings are in process and not really ready to say they are finished.  

An evening of Food, Wine and Art

Ready to begin

The Display of my paintings

The afternoon of the event
Later that evening there were so many people on the street you couldn't see the door!

in process
It was a very busy evening and I talked for 3 hours straight. It was wonderful to introduce so many people to the encaustic process. Everyone was fascinated with the concept and had so many questions.

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

Pouring the Wax On

This is another painting trying out more new techniques. I taped the sides of my board with masking tape to form a barrier all around the piece. It stuck up about an inch from the surface, and the first layer of clear encaustic medium was poured on. After cooling it slightlty I embedded painted raffia ribbon mesh in spots. Then poured on another thin layer of clear encaustic medium. At this point there was no color added. I began using colored wax and oil pastels (the red scribbles) to layout the design. The buterfly image is a laser copy I cut out and collaged on with a coat of clear on top. The next layer has the black shapes transfered on the surface and a thin layer of clear painted over. The beautiful white lacy efferct is the shellac application, this time painted very thinly, and lightly hit with the torch. The final layer is applied 24 hours later over the shellac to set it. I tinted clear shellac with white oil paint to get the color. Amber shellac can be used as is out of the can and gives the burnt sienna look as shown im my previous post,"The Day the Winds Came"  I am really pleased with the white lacy look of the shellac and the way it brings the elements together. I will definitely try other colors and methods of application. I like the oil pastel drawing as well and want to do more of that. But I don't know about the pouring, it was a lot of work to keep it level and I don't see where it made much of a difference in the finished product.