Inside me lives two creative beings....the crafter and the artist. They often over-lap each other, but at times they stand alone. I have been tapping more and more into the artist side of me lately and need an outlet to talk about this process.
Riddle me this....what happens when you leave an encaustic piece in a car in 70 degree heat in direct sunlight? Yup, you guessed...meltdown city.
Remember the Bursting Sunset piece:
Well after my neglect it is now this:
But before anyone panics and wants to have memorial for the lost piece....I like this version better. To me it mimics the nature of volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands. The lava destroys the land, however as soon as the magma cools, new landscapes are formed. God is the original artist. What HE destroys, HE can recreate in a more awesome and impressive form. Coincidently, this piece was destroyed and reborn on Easter Sunday...it was a reminder that in death and destruction, there is a rebirth. The symbolism was not lost on me and is a reminder of my faith in HIM.
Ha....I'm getting bolder and bolder. It wasn't enough for me to just get back into melting wax, not to mention the blow torch.
My latest caper...burning shellac. Yep, that same shellac that used as a finish for wood floors, furniture and the like. Yep the same shellac that says, usually in bold letters, "FLAMMABLE!" Yep that same shellac, I am intentionally setting on fire.
I love texture and random patterns, so I couldn't help but to fall in love with this process. I used some of my "cough cough" not so visually appealing 1st encaustic paintings to test this process on. Wow...who knew a little fire could make something so ugly so beautiful.
Of course, I just can't play it safe and just use the heat gun in my encaustic paintings. Again, I'm putting the blame on youtube. I came across the video of a marvelous artist Shawna Moore and her use of the blow torch.
Her work is breathtaking isn't it.
Laura Moriaty is another wonder artist who uses the encaustic medium and a blow torch to create sculptural pieces. Her work is also breathtaking.
Suddenly I'm feeling all brave and borrowed a blow torch. However, I put the torch out several times....flash-backs to that wax fire kept making me chicken out.
Finally I got brave, lit the torch and actually touched the flame to the wax. After experimenting for a while, learning how to control the flame and the movement of the wax, I wanted to try an actually art piece. My first attempt with the torch was pretty good. But I still have to work on controlling the amount of time I spend on the wax with the torch. A friend of mine has titled this "Angels and Flowers"
Oh....here's another reason why I love wax art....scrap wax. I'm from the polymer clay world and you never throw away scrap clay. You can use it as fillers, but that's a waste to me, scarp clay makes the most wonderful patterns itself. I salvage the left over wax from my work surface, tools, scraped sides of the pieces I'm working on and from scraping back an layered encaustic surface to reveal the colors underneath.
This piece, I call the Scrap Yard. The center was created with wax bits fused with the blow torch. The marbled areas were created by layering different colors of wax and scraping them back. The Scrap Yard I am very proud of this piece.
But oh-uh I have learned about a new technique involving setting shellac on fire...{gulp}. Better make sure the fire extinguisher works. More to come
After spending time over a hot stove making up my encaustic medium, I was ready to jump in and begin making encaustic paint (pigmented encaustic medium).
In researching, I found that some things a no-no for encaustic painting. Acrylics and other water-based medium will cause the medium to remain soft. As will certain oils. so fare I have experimented with oil paints (however they must be leeched of their oils), oil pastels, oil bars or stick and powdered pigments.
Believe it or not, I've started playing with hot wax again. Now, now get your mind out of the gutter...not that kind of play.
Six years ago, I made my 1st candle and fell in love with hot wax. Six and half years ago, I made made last one and fell out of love with hot wax. I don't know if you know this little secret or not....but molten wax is flammable when it comes in contact with a heat source...in this case the electric burner on the stove. I was in the process of making a huge molded candle and want to make somewhat vertical layers instead of horizontal so I had it propped on something so that it was practically laying on it's side...not smart I know. Well I'd gotten the next to the last layer poured when the candle slipped. And then all hell broke out. Whoosh! In a matter of seconds I had a fire blazing right there on the burner. 15 minutes later I had the fire out, and was sitting on the couch doing shots of tequila to calm my nerves. No serious damage done, just a hell of a clean up.
Once again the world wide web as lured me back into the world of molten wax. Encaustic Painting...{Gasp}...I was in love, what beautiful art wax creates.
Encaustics Painting is not a new art...it's some 2000 plus years old. This Terracotta column-krate circa 360–350 B.C. is amongst one of the oldest pieces of encaustic art still around.
The more I researched the more intrigued I became...but not enough to even think about melting wax again. Youtube was my down-fall. It was ok reading about and looking at pictures of wax art, however, the first video I saw had me hooked. Next thing you know, I'm dragging out all my old candle making supplies. Not crazy about the process of making the encaustic medium, but I'm too cheap to pay the high cost of commercially made medium. Whoopie no fires set.
