Friday, July 6, 2012

Encaustic Art

I have been absent for quite a while, I know!  My only excuse is that life just kind of happened, all in a good way.  I am working at a full-time job (not art related) which I love but is keeping me quite busy.  My only painting time is on the weekends, and that is competing with everything else as well - gardening, surfing, camping, any trips away.  And I have been regularly posting about my art on my Facebook page - The Art of Lisa Riehl, so I just let this slide.  But it's time to try this again ...

Just to add to all this "busyness", I've started working in a brand new medium - WAX!  It's called encaustic painting.  I took a workshop on it about 5 years ago, bought supplies, but then everything just sat there.  I was working on too many other things at the time and I decided to just concentrate on acrylic painting.  But recently I've been seeing a lot more encaustic art out there, and I just love the look of it.  I'm so drawn to wax art, it has this amazing translucent quality to it and is super versatile.  So I took a one day refresher with a friend who does encaustics, and presto!  Now I'm addicted ...


"Untitled",    8x8",  encaustic on board


Encaustic painting is basically painting with melted beeswax that has been mixed with a small amount of tree sap resin (called damar) to give it a bit more strength.  It's an ancient art form that's been around for thousands of years (ancient Greeks and Egyptians used it).  See here for more detailed info.  The wax can be tinted with oil paints or dry pigment, or used in it's original translucent state.  And it's amazing for collage, you can add almost anything to the wax (paper, photos, shells, metal, etc...).  So it's super versatile.  I have soooooo many ideas!!!!  (and so little time :-)

I'm still experimenting with it.  I love crows and birds, so I've been playing quite a bit with photographic images that I transfer onto the wax.  And I'm also experimenting with texture - so much fun!  One thing I haven't quite figured out is how to do something similar to my typical landscape style of painting.  But the experimenting part is super fun.

I entered one of my favourites into a big juried art show here on Vancouver Island:  the Sooke Fine Art Show  (July 28-Aug 6).  And it got accepted!  I'm dropping it off tomorrow. Here it is ...


"Triple Murder",  10x30",  encaustic on board (triptych)




1 comment:

Carole Baker said...

Thanks for commenting on my painting, which is very encouraging, but also, it brought me to your marvelous paintings. I love the landscapes... you really capture you environment.