Saturday 10 May 2014

First Steps at Encaustic

I have always admired encaustic projects but it took me quite some time to dare try it myself.

What I love about encaustic is that this technique is very forgiving. You can always add layers, remelt, scrap off what you don't like or even embrace happy accidents ;)



I had a first play with this technique - trying to add texture, embed objects, add colour and also remove some of it.








Adding colour with oil pastels worked quite well - but not with all brands I had at home. It took some time until I found the one that was soft enough but also gave enough pigment.



 
I used scraps from an old French botanical textbook alongside some scraps from an old magazine from around 1940 to build up the background.




I encorporated rusted and patina-ed objects as well as an old yellowish tinted watch glass.




The frozen charlotte head is a cast made from an original and done with white UTEE. I combined it with an old watch key.






I call that yellow watch glass element my "encaustic fried egg" ;)




I love the highly textural feel that you can create with encaustic! And as I love assemblage too and using found objects, I really enjoyed embedding some of my "treasures" to the prepared surface.


The vintage buttons were a fleamarket find from my last visit to the Vienna Naschmarkt fleamarket. I love that they have a history - even (or especially) if it is a history of an ordinary life spent in a sewing chest...maybe being re-used several times.







Paint board, 4'' x 6''.
Bees wax, Palembang Dammar resin, oil pastels, black wire, found objects, scraps from old books.