I need Beeswax quick!

I’m out!  It’s ordered but I can’t make medium till it comes in.  Drat!  Poor planning….how did I let this happen?

Today I continued with the gourd foliage.  Carving, filling, and scraping back.  

Periodically I add a layer of medium, scrape back to a smooth finish, and fuse.  This layer isolates and protects the work I’ve done (to a degree) and adds depth as the piece builds.  

I still have pigmented wax medium on the palette so I can continue to work on the design, but I’m out of medium so I can only go so far.

When the beeswax arrives, hopefully tomorrow, it will take a few hours to prepare medium and get rolling again. This is where I left it tonight

Pea and the Gourds

Pea and I had to go visit her Doc in Birmingham today — so I had a late start at the studio.  She enjoyed the ride - we make this trip together fairly often.  She’s a great little traveler.  I dropped her off at home, picked up the dogs, and began my day with the gourds!

I visited a gourd farm many years ago, riding around in a golf cart with a very nice farmer — seeing gourds of every shape and size.  It was fascinating but I only did one watercolor as a result.  I’m finally using this photo of foliage as a starting point for this encaustic.  Really, I simply need a leaf shape to base my foliage on.

I built my wax medium ground yesterday and began with blues and grays.  I roughly drew my design on tracing paper, knowing I’d make changes as I went along but I wanted to do a little planning before I started.  

In this first photo I’ve already carved and filled with a few leaf shapes.  The first leaves are very bold in color because they’ll be subdued by multiple layers of wax by the time the piece is finished.

Between each set of leaves, I paint a layer of clear wax medium and scrape it back to a thin, smooth layer with a single edge blade.  Each layer is fused with a heat gun to bond it to the previous layers.  Then using the design on my tracing paper, I decide which leaves will be in the next layer and draw them on the wax.  I cut them in with a clay tool, carve the area out and fill it with pigmented wax.  Scraping it back with a razor, I will then put an isolating layer of clear wax medium before I continue with the next layer.  

I’ll continue building layers tomorrow.  It’s important to keep the layers level and smooth as I work — each small dip in the wax becomes more pronounced as the layers build.