More encaustic paintings. It’s been hectic getting being gone for a week, coming back, unloading and doing all the stuff around here before heading for Orlando in a couple of days. I just put the first encaustic up and now have a couple of more to put up from my first efforts. I came home with 7 panels in various states of finish. I think only one needs a little more…and one other is finished, maybe or maybe not…still thinking on that one.

I still have a lot to learn manipulating this medium……well heck, I could learn more every day about the mediums I use all the time. But still there is something to learn when it comes to putting something hot and fluid on a brush and it’s already cold and thick by the time you quickly move the brush to the panel. No hesitation allowed. That’s good….hesitation is a killer.Confidence is right, even if it’s wrong.

At colony, my intent was to try out several methods/styles of painting with wax….different grounds, or adding collage elements to some and not to others, etc. I used the Evans Holy Grail for the first layer on the first one. It dried looking somewhat like a couple of layers of gesso…although you can’t use acrylic gesso under encaustic since it is not absorbent and your painting could pop or slide off later. So this gives you a nice white surface to work on. I, also, tried gluing down rice paper with PVA…..that went on well and stayed down through out the process. The part that didn’t stay down was some of the collaged papers. I’ll have to work on that piece again. It is a challenge to get collage to stay stuck since when you re-heat the surface, it gets re-heated and can come up again. The other pieces were just to paint/melt/spread the medium on the panels ( a couple of thin layers) and then start painting. Encaustic isn’t affected by the wood panel surface the way straight oils might be.

Well gotta get back to packing for Orlando. I’ll be meeting up with artist friends there at least a time or two ………..Linda Stanley and Martha Marshall. We’re going to have a fabulous time Sunday going to the Gee’s Bend show at the Orlando museum before it closes.

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