Calla Lily #2 July 29, 2009
Posted by Beth in Art, Personal.Tags: Art, Personal
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Ooooo. I had time to mess with the encaustic today. If you read my previous post, you know that my first technique was to embed a photo in clear beeswax and then touch it up using encaustic paint. I wanted to try and make the colors bolder and with more contrast—instead of having the milky-translucence of clear wax on top. So today, after embedding the photo, I used paint on the entire surface, including the black background. The result is quite different, and I learned a lot.
I have never tried to mix-to-match colors before (ever!), so that was a fun challenge. (Addendum: to get the shadow-gray to look right I had to add in green and yellow. Who would have thought!) Also, the various colors melt at different temperatures (I use a heat gun to melt each layer to fuse them) so it was a challenge to melt enough to remove texture and heavy brush stokes without having everything melt into mush.
Anyway—I like both effects. They are just different. It’s difficult to show the detail, but here they are. Which do you like best?
First method:
Second method:
Post series: New Project, Calla Lily #2, Calla Lily #3, Calla Lily #4, Back to Encaustics
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I like the appearance of the second one better. It looks more interesting to me. I think that you using your flower photographs as a base is an excellent idea as well.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
The more I look at them–the harder it is to choose which I like best, but then I have the advantage of being able to see the subtleties of the first one which just don’t come across in the photos.–there is an almost ethereal three dimensional quality created by teh top layers of clear wax.
However, I do like the bolder colors of the second, and the way the colors swirled together when I fused the wax, producing unpredictable textures and shapes. I also like that it looks more like a painting and less like a photograph.
The second way is a much tougher technique–more variables, more steps–so I think I will proceed with that one for the rest of the series. I should learn more that way.
[…] third I can’t show you because it is what I painted over. Yesterday’s painting had no overcoat of clear wax. Instead, once I had pressed the photo onto a bed of wax, I used the […]
[…] series: New Project, Calla Lily #2, Calla Lily #3, Calla Lily #4, Back to […]
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