Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Frivolity

Okay I am working in the medium just to see what I can do and also submit something to a local art exhibit meant to encourage people to collect art.  Kind of a cliche' subject matter but I created a small encaustic painting of artichokes to see what I can do and to experiment with the wax medium.  It is not quite finished but most of what is left is layers of medium to seal the work. I love the texture so I am not sure if that is what I want to do with it. Pictures below and somewhat truncated.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Prep Work Done!

Okay second set of nine are prepped and ready.  Tomorrow I will start working the imagery.  Short post will be posting pictures of the companion piece by the end of the week.  

Mostly trying to work beyond the concrete.  I am working on the concepts for the next set as well.

The second group may be a long series based on the organic and inorganic; human and mechanical; and there is something in the concept of community vs. bureaucracy.  We'll see.  I have come up with a solid idea but don't want to explore it quite yet on the blog.  I will get started on it within the next week or two.  I will learn how to create urethane (sic) molds to pour wax into and hopefully begin learning how to mold, bend, alter, raw steel which I would like to include in the panel paintings.  I spoke to Courtney and I need to start making the model for the mold.  I need to go and speak to Doug about working with steel (or maybe Shawn).

More on all of that.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Started 2nd Set of Panels

Spent the last week making and prepping panels.  This will be the sister-companion piece to the first nine panels.  Again, another 9 - approx 12x12" birch panels. This is a total of 18 panels, which has particular significance in Judaism.  It is called "Chai" and means life.  I think it is an important number and has significance to the two combined pieces.  The second piece is loosely titled, Face Revealed, related to the first, Hiding Face.  I am still journaling to articulate what more of this means in succinct terms.

Celebrating the high holy days and Yom Kippur this week gave me an opportunity for self-reflection but I also had several friends in my Jewish community come to my home for break fast and we were able to further discuss what it is I am doing and why.  I didn't realize how important it was to have a discussion that though related to art, was more related to the cultural representation by people who would be affected by what I am doing.  It was good.  I will publish the final pictures for Hester Panim and the companion piece when I have something to show.
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1st Encaustic Painting

1st Encaustic Painting
Gesso'd Birch Panels

Lacuna

This is the first beginning steps into encaustic painting.  While waiting for supplies, I set up the grad studio at Winthrop, and built my worktable (my husband was impressed).  It took a couple of weeks for the materials used in encaustic painting (refined beeswax, damar resin, carnuba wax AND controlled heating elements, etc).  While waiting I built my first concept for the painting, nine (9) approx 13x13" birch plywood panels with white pine 1x3"frames.  This picture shows the panels, six (6) of them gesso'd with encaustic gesso and three (3) left plain birch - all of them fused with a double layer of pure beeswax to set the foundation for the painting.

I actually drew the random graphite marks prior to fusing the first layers of beeswax - that's what it looked like below.

Lacuna

Lacuna
Random Marks

Next Step

Next Step
Adding Tone

Next Step

Next Step
Breaking Up the Tone

Cutting in a tone

At this stage, I painted on two coats of encaustic medium w/out pigment and fused them on to the surface of the panels.  I then cut in straight lines which I taped off on one side and then rubbed a blended oil hue (greyish blue-green) into the lines and wiped off, covered with another layer of encaustic medium and fused.

While fusing I began to break up the layers so that I could break up the oil lines and have them float between the layers of clear encaustic paint.  This "tone" gave me a platform to begin to work with the painting concept.

Hester Panim

Here is where I am two weeks later.  I am into the fifth or sixth layer and now I am working back into the surface of the piece. Part of my artistic journey from painterly oil paintings and collages has been obsession with working the surface of the art piece, constructing and deconstructing.  This medium has already given me great joy in its flexibility and versatility in working with the surface as a way to express my narrative.  In addition I am finding that I want to move the surface in and out of three dimensional space which works well with the concept of memory.  


I began to build boxes that I affixed to the panels of wax.  The panels are broken up like memory yet built from a stable shape (equal square panels).  The internal boxes are irregular attached/unattached to the wax memory. They provide me an opportunity to increase the ethereal effect.

Lacuna

Lacuna
Hester Panim