Sticking to it

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Moleskin Journal: tide pools from Wheat Island, Maine

Moleskin Journal: tide pools from Wheat Island, Maine

Devoting the time. Quick can be good, but I am getting frustrated with just 5 minute sketches. It felt good to take some time to devote to this sketch. The Moleskin has such nice paper, it deserves the time. So, all the Moleskin sketches will be well considered. 

sunflowerbkcasein

I am going to try to work with the casein and the encaustic and see how that goes. I think that the casein will be “finished” though when I apply the encaustic. At least for now, once I have a handle on how the material works I might branch out and add encaustic paint too. Casein really is for noodlers! It changes as you work it, so it’s a real learning process. Fun!

Painting

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Black-eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan

The thing I like most about encaustic painting is that you always have some sort of surprise. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t, sometimes you can fix it. I have discovered that casein paint works really nicely on birch panel and that they encaustic works really nice over the paint. Now the experiment is to see where the balance is between ground, underpainting and encaustic painting. I enjoy both of these mediums and I am going to keep trying to find the balance to see how they can work best together. Oh, and in the end, for some reason I decided to scratch into the wax surface,  liked the way that turned out! There is so much learning to do!

middle ground

middle ground

Here is the casein underpainting with the encaustic ground.

underpainting

underpainting

and here is just the casein underpainting

Assembly

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Feather and wood on stone

Feather and wood on stone

No drawing today…yet! John and I took the boat out to Warren Island State park this morning. We are trying to do more exploring and it’s fun to see all the different islands that are practically in our backyard. I found a beautiful stone as we walked on the beach, brought that home with a project in mind. Sometimes things just fall together. This morning I found a really nice feather and a pretty piece of thin wood…somehow this stone was just waiting for them. I decided to try a piece that was just assembly. It was super fun.

The other piece that I did today I am not too happy with. But, not everything works all the time.

encaustic on birch panel

encaustic on birch panel

Encaustic Experiments

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Graphite, tissue, encaustic

Graphite, tissue, encaustic

I decided to try and draw on tissue and incorporate that over the stone with encaustic. I had a failure, you just can’t overwork it. But, the first one I did actually turned out the way I wanted. I was surprised that I could do the drawing on tissue without any tearing and that the graphite didn’t smear! So, I think this will work for future pieces.

oil pastel and encaustic

oil pastel and encaustic

I am liking using the encaustic and oil pastels together. The impressionistic look is nice and it keeps me working loose. I think I might need to embrace the fact that I do best working quickly….which might make the encaustic a good fit for me. If I take to long on anything it seems to just get overworked and to tied tight!

casein, colored pencil and encaustic

casein, colored pencil and encaustic

This last piece I did as a lark, casein painting with colored pencil on stone. I actually worked on this in the vertical, but I like it best in the horizontal.

Now I need to get back to my lobster claw and mussel shell casein painting on panel.