Friday 23 March 2012

Encaustic collage "Winter Fern"

"Winter Fern" - Encaustic painting (35x25cm, paper & wax on board)

Experimenting with encaustics is full of surprises. This new work involves shellac (left side) which actually didn't turn out as I would have liked it. It didn't create these large crates and web patterns - don't know what went wrong.
On the right side, my first trial of photo transfer, using a photocopy of a picture of the wonderful Karl Blossfeldt. Not easy to find a photocopy machine doing laser prints, as my inkjet copies wouldn't do the trick.
I made some incisions with sharp old dentist's instrument, filled them up with burnt umber oilpaint, put on a layer of medium, and finally collaged in the music. Although I'm not quite sure about this last bit, maybe I'll take it away again. It's there thanks to a musician friend, a cellist, who recognised two cello necks instead of the ferns.

4 comments:

Blue Sky Dreaming said...

What a beautiful red! Encaustic like most materials can be full of surprises,, good and not so good...this one good!

Sue said...

Thank you, Blue Sky...

Bridgette Guerzon Mills said...

Even without the webbing of the shellac burn, I still like what happened in the red with its deep and rich variations.

Sue said...

Thank you, Bridgette, that's very kindly said... However I would love to know how to create these shellac textures!