Oil painting and glazing

Today's class was with a live model and we had to make a background with a single wash color and than make a few sketches for composition. This was the set-up for the composition :


At first I started by making a drawing, but we were told to make loose boxed in sketches. No details just quick sketches.






Following the sketches we drew directly on our canvas with charcoal. Once the drawing finished you dust the charcoal off and proceed with the painting with only white.

Next week we will be adding an olive green for the dark parts followed by colour glazing.

Encaustic 2

This week we continued with Encaustic. And for this project I decided to try a portrait. As you can see, it was a bit more difficult to manipulate the wax to get the desired effect.

Somehow the wax would melt to quickly and dissipate the colours, I had difficulty finding the right distance with the heat gun to allow me to work the wax. The other part that I found frustrating this time around was how the brushes would dry up with a blob of wax on them. I quickly learned that trying to melt the wax with the gun was disastrous for the brushes, the best way was to let the brushes stand in hot wax until it melt the blob. I believe my set up this time around wasn't as good as my first try.



I was out of the Zone, I may have tried too hard. A difficult medium to play with, a challenging one, but I find it very stimulating because it forces you to be creative in its handling.

So, this was the last Encaustic class, we will present our work at the end of the session along with other projects.

Next week we are starting the glazing process, working with a live model for 4 weeks. Looking forward to it.

The Season's an ARTX project

Last year for my final project I wanted to work big. I wanted to use a clear vinyl for canvas and make like a corridor with the seasons represented on both sides, one side abstract and the other realist. I spent a weekend in a wharehouse working on this project.




I used acrylic paint because of its fast drawing action. And for 20 hours I painted. The clear vinyl held a pleasant surprised, when I installed the piece in the room I saw that somehow the backside was showing a different picture, dream like; this was really interesting because as a viewer both side revealed something different.

Each piece was 20 feet long by 52 inches in height, I hanged it from the ceiling with ropes. Right now it is sleeping in my basement, this is way too large for anything other than a show or installation, and I don't know how long this clear vinyl will age.

Still, it was fun to be able to work on large surfaces and to actually be able to install it in a public area for all to see. I especially like the reactions from the viewers.

Encaustic Journey

After last week's lecture on Encaustic painting we had a workshop. In groups of 4 we all gathered around the hot plates and started the process of melting wax and adding pigments and working with this new texture. New to us, this medium has been around three thousand years.

We also watch a video of a Canadian Artist who specializes in this medium you can see his work at : http://www.artnet.fr/artist/13203/jacques-payette.html

It is a fun technic that makes you feel like a kid again! You have to experiment with encaustic, get a feel for it, be adventurous and see where it will take you. I enjoyed the quick drying action and being able to melt it back to flatness and introducing hew colours or texture. You can scratch, melt, add and substract whatever; working with wax allows you to make mistakes because it is easily fixed.

My first try in class last Friday was very basic, I did not take a picture of it, but decided to work it over, I wiped it out and started fresh. Friday's class wasn't a waste, I got to work at home and did a scenery. It took me four hours to complete it, I think it is ok for my second try, much better than the first one.

I settled in the second kitchen in my home because it has a stove fan, and two windows and I turned this area into my personnal space. The house was meant to be a duplex but we use it all, I use two small rooms one is suppose to be a kitchen for upstairs and the other is a closed in porch lots of light in either rooms, but the porch gets cold in the winter.


Anyhow, the fan was nice to have. I used a small two burner stove and a hot gun. I melted the wax(microcrystalline mixed with carnauba) in a muffin pan and added the dry pigments to it. After wiping the panel clean I started to build up the background and started with mixing the sky working my way down the panel.


I really like working with this medium, you can really explore different texture effects. I believe this is something I will be experimenting with for a while.

Next Friday we will be working on our second panel and I will get to see what everone else has done. This is great fun!