As I looked around my house today I realized that it is quite like a color cocoon. I have a variety of lovely colors on all the walls in this charming old house, rainbow like art on top of those walls in every room, and bold and color saturated rugs underfoot. The funny thing is I wear black 90% of the time! Lately I've been exploring color a bit more boldly in my work. Using simple lines, text and color to evoke memory or emotion has been creatively freeing. I love using the oil paints as a base because they flow across the wood panel so smoothly, which is very different than using color in encaustics. That being said oils do have their drawbacks (drying time, mess and clean up). Theoretically the two paintings above will be done in oil paints and then covered in a layer of clear encaustic medium. I say theoretically because many things could wrong here and most likely the damage would be done in the final stage! I have a very clear picture of what I want to do with these two complimentary paintings (which never seems to work in my favor) so I'm going to take it slow and see what happens. I'll share again as they progress but will get back to some encaustic painting tomorrow as these dry.
10 comments:
I hope you won't take offense if I say these shapes seem sort of fallic.
I'm not saying I don't like it... just that it was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw your paintings.
I love seeing your paintings in progress. You've inspired me to do the same!
And I don't see any "fallic" ness about them. But to each his own. ;)
amanda-this is just the foundation for many more layers of paint, texture and wax. in the end they will be houses built on love and rainbows.
shannon-thanks....i really like to share some things from beginning to end. when i fin a painting i really like i always find myself wondering "how did they do that?" can't wait to see some of your works in progress!
i could eat the colors in the bottom painting. i thought they were beautiful just as they were... but looking forward to seeing them advance. did not see anything resembling male anatomy here!
what did you see on your trip that inspired you?
I love to see your pieces in progress, too! I wish I could sit inside artist's studios all day and watch them work. Fabulous!
hi janice and jamie...i'm putting together of favorites and inspirations from my museum visit...until then here's a few bits of inspiration others have shared recently:
http://maryannwakeley.blogspot.com/
http://hrsmithjones.blogspot.com/
Very soothing colors and forms. Simple shapes always work for me. I realize they are in progress, but they look really great as they are too.
I just love the idea of exploring colour, and i think oils are the perfect paints to use for that. I did that as well a couple of years ago, only using oil paint. I really got a kick out of the subtle shades of on particular colour you can create by adding more and more white as you go along experimenting. For cleaning up the mess afterwards i used normal oil with wich you cook dinner, the cheapest one. I found you can better avoid the terpentine because of the head ache yiou get from using it frequently. The cooking oil works perfectly for cleaning brushes and for making the oil paint thinner.
And as far as the idea of living in a colour cocoon goes, that's my favorite way to feel like.
Sorry for this loooooong story!
This is a very inspiring post. I look forward to seeing the final paintings!
hi dana and patricia...i've been working on these two today and added a wee bit of walnut alkyd to speed up the drying time a bit however i still don't know what will happen when i try to apply the layer of beeswax...
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