I had a fun day yesterday 'playing' with encaustic. Fiona and I ventured 'down the hill', half an hour away, to the seaside tourist mecca of Caloundra [usually best avoided if you are a quiet life, mountains and nature lover, and non consumer like me]. We were late because I didn't count on peak hour traffic at 8.30am. Don't know if I have EVER done the peak hour thing to Caloundra before.
Anyway, a lovely mum and daughter duo, Lyn Reading and Shell Maximous were teaching the essentials of encaustic 'painting' at the fabulous Caloundra Arts and Crafts Centre - [yes, Fiona and I had serious Art Centre envy as our 'Maleny Arts Factory' is no closer to happening]. Lyn and Shell have done many hours of research on the net, many hours trialling various materials, spent oodles of dollars on supplies and equipment and warmly and enthusiastically shared all they had learnt with their bunch of willing students.
It was a joy for me to be a student, to spend a day with Fiona, and to venture out of my warm, cosy comfort zone which is Maleny and my own studio.
Here are some of the results - all play of course - none close to finished art works.
I love the soft and subtle surface created with the wax and the blending of layers that happens when the wax melts through.
Most of these samples are using bits and pieces of 'collage on paper' I took with me. Some with Japanese text, some with modelling paste, some with canvas/teabag/stitching, and most have a smearing of black acrylic paint pre applied and some have bits of tea from emptied teabags embedded. The gold is REAL gold leaf supplied by the ladies and heated to bubbling point with a heat gun.
You can click on the images to see more detail.
I am still not totally convinced how 'stable' the wax is - ie if left in the car at 50 degrees, will the wax melt? Not much of an issue in most scenarios, but if I am to sell works with an encaustic finish, I need to be 100% certain that customers won't be left with puddles of wax in unwanted places. The next step is to buy some damar varnish [I have the bees wax] then make up my own solution. I will leave one of my samples in the hot sun and see what happens.
I had a quick look on the net last night, and thanks to Lorraine Glessner of 'oh what a world, what a world' blog site, I found Louise Strawbridge - LOVE her work - check it out, even if you are not into encaustic. She is also a lover of used teabags amongst other fabulous 'wabi sabi' stuff.