Dandelions!

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Encaustic, oil pastel on cradled birch panel. 6" x 6"

Encaustic, oil pastel on cradled birch panel. 6″ x 6″

The week is going by so fast! I have so much that I still want to do, but there is plenty of time. I am pretty happy with this piece…I decided to limit myself (working on the discipline) to only using the brush. No drawing! No guidelines, just throwing it down. Trying to keep the spontaneity going. It was a good learning experience. I really like the encaustic and the oil pastel together. Oil pastel is great to work with this way, it melts beautifully on my griddle palate and with just a little beeswax medium added has a nice fluidity going on. The other nice thing about the oil pastel as opposed to the wax pigment is that it doesn’t “dry” as quickly and has some opacity. I like the way the brush stroke can be maintained.

I think that I need to get a few more brushes. The encaustic/oil pastel combination can get muddy if one isn’t careful. Mixing colors is something I would like to get better at. However, keeping the color pure and simple is forcing me to make serious decisions when putting the color down…so that is good.

On to the next project! And, I still need to get to the inktober work!

Art, Art and more Art!

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Encaustic & oil pastel: 5" x 7"

Encaustic & oil pastel: 5″ x 7″

This is my week to devote just about every day to my Art Projects. This makes me so happy. I am going to have to counsel myself not to be disappointed that I can’t get everything done that I want to. Today started slow…it’s amazing how quickly the morning gets away from you. I took some photos and decided to just play around a little–the result is this little encaustic painting of a dandelion. This afternoon I am going to work on some ink drawings for inktober (I am behind on this) and do some planning for the week. I need to get organized so I can make good use of my time. And, I need to remember to eat and walk the Big dog!

amandbig1014

New Substrate

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photo encaustic: image printed on light pink tissue

photo encaustic: image printed on light pink tissue

While looking for something to work on for encaustic that would be easy to deal with in terms of finishing and ready to hang I came across cradled birch panel. This seems like it might be perfect for a range of work. Today I worked on some photo encaustic and that turned out pretty well. I think that these will also work for casein and even colored pencil with the right ground. The dandelions seem to be popular–so I am going to work on a bunch of these. I have had several friends respond well to these, so I will be giving some away. This will help me perfect techniques and motivate me to feel good about doing some “repeats”. The nice thing about the encaustic is that each one turns out a little different, so they are all unique.

photo encaustic on stone

photo encaustic on stone

Last weekend we took the boat to Isle Au Haut. It was a beautiful day for a hike and such a great spot to visit. I collected stones (some small, some large enough for encaustic) and a few shells. I found one shell that was absolutely fabulous! A rare find up on the cliffs overlooking the water.  I will post that soon.

crabclawred

Looking forward to some time off the day job to pursue art projects.

 

All over the place!

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Rooster warm-up

Rooster warm-up

A sketch here, encaustic there, painting, drawing, waxing….a chaotic week with no discipline! No excuses for any of that other than I guess I haven’t dedicated the “time” to work on finished material. The Art Shed did get electric this week! That took me out of the studio and left me with the dining room table (which is fine). I am on my 4th Derwent Art Academy lesson–drawing a rooster with colored pencil. This seems like it will be a challenge, so I started with a warm up drawing of the rooster and then decided that I should do a warm up using colored pencil only. I should be warmed up by now, and now I am just procrastinating! I am not going to do one more drawing until I finish the rooster!

colored pencil warm up

colored pencil warm up

Because I got electric, I felt obligated to do a little encaustic. I am happy with the two dandelions. The photo was printed on tissue paper and then adhered to a found wood block, encaustic paint and medium over the image. I also did a piece on stone–round shell in casine, colored pencil and encaustic. Not as pleased with this one. I think that the stone needs to be smoother–and the color ran, which I would prefer didn’t happen.

photo-encaustic

photo-encaustic

On to the rooster!

Summer Encaustic

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Dandelion in the mist

Dandelion in the mist

 

Sigh. It feels so good to get back to the wax again! I took this photo last week and knew right away it was destined for encaustic. And, then I found the perfect substrate on the beach–a nice wood block. So, I let that dry out, and gave it a casein white ground, painted some white encaustic in the center before doing a nice encaustic medium ground. The photo was printed on tissue paper and cut carefully with an x-acto knife. I burnished that down onto the warm ground and added a couple of coats of encaustic medium. Final touch was just a little white encaustic around the dandelion and then fused with some extra attention in the center. I was really pleased with the substrate and the tissue paper.

On to try some stone. Doing a casein underpainting and then I will add the details with colored pencil—the plan is to do encaustic medium over the finished work to seal it up. Today is our hottest day so far, and we are all really enjoying the warmth and sunshine!

in progress

in progress