Calla Lily #4 August 13, 2009
Posted by Beth in Art, Personal.Tags: Art, Personal
trackback
Ooo boy. I learned on this one!
Here’s what I started from, a photo with a coat of clear wax on top.
Once again, I painted the black background first:
And then the flower and leaves:
I then fused the wax with a heat gun. As I had learned before–but forgot to apply the knowledge this time–the white takes longer to melt, so by the time I had it sufficiently melted, the rest had flowed and distorted.
I didn’t like the results, so I simply placed the painting face down on the palette and melted the wax off back down to the photo. Now I could start over, and without the layer of clear wax which tends to increase the tendency of the colors to flow and distort. I also painted and fused the white paint before painting any of the other colors. Here is what it looked like with the flower fused, and the black painted but not yet fused.
After fusing the whole painting, I still was not satisfied, so I did some touch up and gently refused several times. Here’s the final result. It is my least favorite of the series. The thin stalks were hard to keep straight and the leaves dominate over the flower. If I make another attempt, I will put fewer contrasting colors in the leaves to avoid the distraction it makes and enlarge the white flower top to make it more of the central eye-catcher.
What did I learn?
Do not put a layer of clear wax between the photo and the pigmented wax.
Be sure to paint and fuse the white paint first.
Pay attention to the overall balance in the image so that the less important parts don’t visually dominate.
Post series: New Project, Calla Lily #2, Calla Lily #3, Calla Lily #4, Back to Encaustics
AisA Academy 
[…] I last wrote, I had finished three images I wanted to combine into one larger […]
[…] series: New Project, Calla Lily #2, Calla Lily #3, Calla Lily #4, Back to […]