I have continued my studies with the encaustic wax and pastels. The last layer of my work will end with the step that is seen in the image above. I intend to carve into the wax, and then proceed to add oil paint on top of the carving. The image added is just an image of the carving process. It is very similar to removing ink off a plate for etching in printmaking. I have been using the same image just for my study pieces, but I intend on having final pieces possess two images juxtaposed.
Two years ago, we went to the library and read books under a tree.
I don’t know if this one is coming across the way I intended. My mom didn’t understand the perspective at first. As you can see with the in progress work, I changed it around a lot.
This week has been distracting and packed with School related things, I had a pre-observation, my observation, and about five other meetings and a constant round of TBA’ing. However, I am really enjoying these small works of art and adding small white details to the pre existing ink that I had. I did about one-two per night and this upcoming week I am going to add another layer of ink and try using pastel over it to out a dusty color for some of the work.
This past week was a weird week as I was out one day incredibly sick and then had a snow day on Thursday (a true rarity in NYC). I found in the beginning, working again with some altered paper but as the week went on, I did more collage work. The second work, I cut out a fence that blocks my path every morning. I also got injured at work a week and a half ago from a student and wanted to try to turn my documentation of the injury into a piece itself (through digital collaging of sorts).
My latest image transfer was on the back of a drawing board that I had. I was nervous about the surface taking down the image and having it show up but it worked out pretty well. I also tried making the image larger than the standard 8.5×11 by splitting the image and making it larger. It’s a good idea in theory, but I don’t really like the line that shows up and find it pretty distracting. I’m thinking the net surface I work on will be a lighter one in color as the past two I have done have been relatively dark.
Comparison of the Encaustic painting with the wax and soft pastels. Same image, but I am not sure which is stronger. I will probably end up carving into the encaustic painting first. Not sure what to put on the top yet.
Baird Park
The night before, I’d had a dream that took place at one specific place at Baird Park. I felt like I needed to go there, so we went and looked around. It was here that I told Alex that this was my favorite time of day because of the way the sun hit the leaves and made them seem like they were glowing. He’d never noticed it before but I noticed my whole life.
This is still exploration with encaustic. This is painting with encaustic wax. All coloration comes from the wax. I will try and finish this one to compare to the pastels.
This past Sunday, I went to a six hour workshop on joining pastels and encaustic. The workshop was very meditative, and I am grateful because I think I have found the direction I am going with my work. I started three works where I learned three different techniques under a local artist named Kathryn Bevier. There were several RIT professors that I had the opportunity to speak with there and pick their brains. The results from the workshop where the three artworks attached. The image that has the bubbles is the direction I will be pursuing my final artwork. I will be applying soft pastel images, and then several layers of raw encaustic wax. The last layer I will carve into the wax and then apply a dark oil paint to the surface. I will probably be using oil paint sticks for that. 
With these, I wanted to try actually printing onto altered paper so I painted the paper before putting it through the printer.
This is my first attempt at transferring onto an altered surface. I wasn’t sure if it would work with my inkjet printed picture but I was pleasantly surprised to see it transferred pretty well onto the slate. Huge thanks to Brette for the slate!
I don’t like this digital painting at all. The image in my mind was a lot better, this one just seems creepy to me. I’m either going to keep working on it or just ditch it altogether.
