Sunday, April 18, 2010

Birkenau Series 2/3rds Finished


Here is the series thus far ....

All Prep Work for Birkenau Series


This are the last three preps for the series.  One of which ended up being Stacks, the last two are Shower and Ash Pond.  These I hope to finish this week or by the final critique first week of May. These will be finished as the others to complete the series.

Process Work for "Stacks"




This is the process work for Stacks

Stacks


This is the fourth of the series based abstractly on the images of the barracks and cattle cars loaded with human beings, images weighted down towards the ground.  I have several images of the process which include the last two paintings that have been prepped.

Finished 2 Already in Progress for Birkenau Series


These two are Selection and Judas Hole.  These have been shown in an early state (in-progress) in previous blog entries.  In working on these I came up with a solution for edging the painting in line within the concept of "transition" as it relates to the spirituality of life so deeply and literally entrenched in this space.  I planted each painting into its own space and offer again a metallic bridge in the form of a silver inset that helps to bridge it from one reality to the next.  This is work is many ways is more successful in integrating mixed media (particularly metal) than Panim el Panim.  Each time I work slowly through the process I am able to discover ways that make more sense to the piece and repurpose the additional media (e.g. barbed wire, metal mesh, etc) in ways that integrate them together rather than lie as separate entities next to each other.

72 Hours

Okay working, working, working.  Spent 72 hours at school working on paintings and classwork (mostly painting or drawing) and it doesn't count work at home.  Actually I would just prefer to paint but I am also working on studies for the studies for the large panels.  I am finishing the edging on the Time Pit series.  I added all the bridge pieces and gilded them.  Waxing the edges is the final thing, first layers painted and am in the process of fusing.

The next entries are the process pieces and work-in-progress for the Birkenau series.  Four of the six completed with the fourth one just finished hours ago at the studio.  Two more paintings to go to finish this series and the prep work has been completed.  Goal is to get these two done this week.
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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