The Color of Berries

Berries start like this.  Red, orange, maroon, and yellow is on the palette to the left.  Encaustic is a messy business and I’m getting used to it.  I never clean brushes and I’ve quit using my soy wax completely.  I think that’s progress!

My painting day was interrupted but I managed to start attaching some berries.  I want to get a few in before I begin clustering more leaves.  I’ll add more berries in the final layers.

And they just don’t get cuter than this.  Dana burrows in and all I usually see exposed is her nose….or her tail.  She’s precious and quiet as a mouse around the studio.  She loves going every morning and is happy to settle into my office chair and snooze through the day.  She’s going to make someone a terrific companion.  

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.  

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