Space!!!!

I’ve made room to work on larger pieces and still reach what I need in a short reach, long reach, or two steps :).  Timing CAN be everything.  To my right are three heated palettes for pigmented wax medium with the vent fan above.  Directly in front of me is a griddle for clear medium.  The electric skillet is for making medium.  When I’m making medium I work from the front of this drawing table.  The white shelf unit has drawers of tools, cakes of prepared medium, oil paint, R&F encaustic paint, paper towels, razor blades, etc.  To the left of my chair is my drawing table for preparing plans and drawings.  Behind me are shelves for boards, books, raw materials (beeswax, damar resin, soy wax), frames, pans and utensils for making medium, etc.  

This should work for a while…. 

Tools

From the beginning, my fascination has been with the beeswax.  The smell, feel, and very nature of it is a wonder to me and I knew it would be a huge challenge. Working in this medium actually had me stumped for longer than I expected - I did a LOT of staring at the board, walking away, popping the top on a Diet Mountain Dew (a trusted delay tactic) and then staring some more.  

What I’ve realized is that it wasn’t the wax that was so alien — it was the tools.  I could still think like a painter but my hands were handling totally different tools and it was like learning a new language, which is another thing I’m REALLY bad at.  

I do a lot of cutting, carving, digging, and gouging.  These dental tools work great but in the beginning, I destroyed them in days.  I was trying to plow through too much wax with a delicate tool.  They now last much longer and I’m more accurate with my cuts.  I also have a “cat hair removal” pick too.  The average encaustic artist doesn’t need one of those!

Without a doubt, the hardest thing to learn to handle has been the single edge blades.  I scrape back each layer of wax to the thinnest possible layer, also hoping to get a level layer that is as flawless as possible.  It reminds me of pulling a beautiful graded wash in watercolor - the only way to learn to do it is to do it over and over and over…..and over.  

I’ve had a brush in my hand daily for twenty years.  Wow, that seems so strange to say.  Anyway, it’s true but these hake brushes are completely different.  I’m using them like mops.  I load them with pigmented wax, pull color over an area, then load the brush with another color, mixing pigment IN the brush and bring it back to the painting.  The wax is hardening in the brush as it approaches the painting, so I’m working fast and thinking has to be done in advance.  There is more feeling than thinking in the moment….and some hoping and praying.

My work area looks like this right now.  I have finally, after many adjustments, settled into a comfortable and productive work space.  I can see that I’ll need another griddle soon and that will shake things up.  I’m also almost ready to graduate to a larger board.  I’m working on 12” x 18” boards now and will want to work larger soon.  That will be my next challenge.

The Space I’m In

As I worked yesterday I thought randomly about the space I was in and the changes I’ve made over the last few months.  My other love is animals and quite a bit of my energy is focused in that direction.  A couple of months ago, I reigned my rescue efforts in a tad so my daily studio schedule could get back on track.

In the short time since, I’ve found my flow with encaustics.  As I look around my work space, I see that I’ve pushed and shoved my tools into a messy but sensible work area!  Funny how doing it regularly is what made it happen.  I had worked with wax for a while already but couldn’t get past the awkward stage.  I’m past it now and fully in the slinging stage - I don’t have a pair of pants left that don’t have wax dripped down the right leg.

When my husband and I go on long trips he tells me I create a nest on my side of the car, surrounding myself with piles of books, needlework, dog treats, DOGS, notes, phone, chargers, bags….  Artists do the same thing in their studios.  But back to the subject….

Some of the things I’ve learned are: I love the rectangular pans sold by R&F Encaustics.  The size and shape work well on my palette.  I like having at least one R&F steel palette.  Pancake griddles work just as well but they are black and I can’t mix on them, so one silver palette is nice.  Other than that, pancake griddles are perfectly acceptable and much less expensive.  Hake brushes are the best and I prefer the better quality ones.  I’m using a lot of 1” at this time for applying pigmented wax and a 4” for applying medium.  Old, round watercolor brushes are handy as well. 

I use one pan for clean wax medium and a second pan for recycled wax medium (directly in front of the heat gun beside the thermometer).  When I complete a painting, I’m running the recycled medium through cheesecloth and then reusing it as I mix pigmented wax for my next piece.  If my clean medium has gotten dust or brush hair in it then I also pour it through a couple of layers of cheesecloth and return it to the same pan for use before adding more medium.

The pinkish round corning container has soy wax in it.  I use it to clean brushes, which I don’t do often.  Occasionally, in a pinch, I need to quickly push a color out of a brush so I’ll splash it around in soy wax and clean with a paper towel.  It won’t be perfectly clean but good enough to not alter the next color.   

The flat saucers on the griddle to the right are recycled wax.  As I scrape off color from my piece, I don’t want to return it to my pure, pigmented color containers.  I throw it in the flat saucers.  I’ll evaluate it later and if it is clean and usable, I’ll combine it with a similar color.  If not, I’ll toss it.  

Developing a process with any medium takes time - so that as I’m working, I can reach or toss and know automatically where everything is.  I want enough organization that my mind is free to focus on the creative decisions.  With encaustic, this has taken me longer than I expected!  As you can tell from the MESS, I’m still not totally there :)

Staying in Motion

I started a new piece today and it felt good to push the green wax to the back of the palette!  Whew, I’ve been overdosing on green.  This piece is full of grays which I’m interpreting as blue/gray and tomorrow I’ll add some warm colors.  After I was into this piece for a couple of hours, I realized I was using my materials more efficiently.  It has taken a long time to become natural with mixing colors, managing the brushes in wax, returning wax to palette, and generally handling these alien materials.  I was able to stay in MOTION today and think a little less about process - which gave me more space to think about my piece of art.  

It’s hard to tell where it’s going right now but I’m feeling good about it.  At the moment, it’s on track.  I didn’t want to stop working tonight because I was in the groove —- but I was tired and that can bring on a bad decision too easily.  SO, I spent some time with the studio cats and the dogs and I left for the day.  We’ll see where tomorrow takes this piece.