Anything but a Card

Well the challenge was for anything other than a card so here is one of my encaustic art paintings.

The sky was created on a hot plate to give the interesting effect. The main part of the picture was done with the iron whilst the fence, birds and dragonflies were created with the stylus.

This was one of the pictures that I had in my recent exhibition in Stroud.

I am putting this in to the following challenge:
Tuesday Alchemy - Anything but a Card

Fire Storm

An encaustic art picture worked on canvas board. This is about 12" x 10" and was worked using the hot air blowing technique.

The board was first covered with clear wax, using the iron, which helps to make the thicker coloured waxes flow better.

Yellow, orange and red waxes were dripped all over the canvas and then remelted and blown about with a hot air gun. This is a fairly substantial heat gun, the type used by DIY enthusiasts rather than the type used by crafters for melting embossing powder and drying ink & paint.

The black silhouette was created with an encaustic iron.

I think I may well frame this one up for my exhibition at Woodruffs Cafe in Stroud next month.

By the Waterside

This week I purchased an A2 hotplate for using with my encaustic art. It is brilliant, keeping a nice even temperature right across the surface of the plate and it is thermostatically controlled with variable heat settings so that you can change the temperature to suit whatever you are working on.

This is my first piece using said piece of equipment. I am quite pleased with it as a first attempt.

Encaustic Art on Parchment

In my last entry I showed examples of encaustic art which had been  transferred to watercolour card. This time I have 5 examples of encaustic art designs on parchment. Whilst being similar to painting on glossy card, you get a completely different effect. It is much softer.

 

Encaustic / Mixed Media Cards

 

Here is something a little bit different on the encaustic art front.

These have all been created by laying down the wax on glossy card, as usual. Once the picture was finished with a fairly even coating of wax, it was turned upside down onto a piece of watercolour card and heated from the back. This melted the wax again causing it to transfer to the watercolour card and whilst molten it sinks into the fibres of the card.

Pulling the glossy card away whilst it is still warm leaves some wax on the original card and some on the watercolour card. This gives a much more muted impression.

The wax then acts as a resist to any watery media added to the picture. Some of these were completed with watercolour paints and some with inks. The paint or ink will sink into the card were there is very little wax and fill in all the gaps so that on white card can be seen.

Fantasy Castle

This is one of my favourite pictures that I have created recently. This started out life as a piece of white canvas board, slightly bigger than A4 in size. I dripped various colours of wax all over the place, starting with white in the centre and moving through various shades of blue. This was heated with a hot air gun (the type you use for DIY rather than the craft one used for melting embossing powder) until the wax started to run. A combination of moving the heat gun and the board itself allowed the wax to be moved where I wanted it to go. Once the base pattern had been created to give a very turbulent effect, the castle was added using the edge of an encaustic iron.

Mountainous Landscape

Good morning.A bright and cheerful landscape. This one is A4 in size and started out life as cream coloured sealed (glossy) card. It was all created with a hot iron with a stylus used to create the fine detail of the birds, dragonflies and the flower detail.

Dragon Flight

Good morning.

A quick blog to show one of my encaustic pictures that I produced while doing a demonstration at the shop in Stonehouse last Friday. These are my favourite sort of colours for fantasy encaustic pictures and I just love dragons. This is A5 in size mounted in an A4 border.

The dragons were produced from two rubber stamps using Stazon ink so as not to smudge the images when the molten wax was applied over the top. All of the wax work was done with an iron.

Encaustic Art Workshops and New Artwork - Jungle

Good morning.

A quick update. The workshops are go! All the equipment is ordered - it should arrive today or tomorrow and the workshop dates are booked. I have 6 sessions set up for 2011 so all I need now is to start advertising and to take some bookings. I have another demonstration session set up for this Friday afternoon. I am so looking forward to that.

Here is a new piece of Encaustic Art that I created at the weekend. It is on canvas board and it is about 10 inches by 12 inches in size. I used a hot air gun and the scribing tool to create this and I am so pleased with the effect.

Exciting things are happening

Good morning. Sorry I have not been around much of late but things are happening and so I have not had time to make cards and do challenges.

I have the opportunity to start holding workshops in both rubber stamping and encaustic art. I am hoping to start the encaustic classes in October so all my energies are being directed at getting this sorted out. Initially I will be holding the workshops in the Craft Emporium in Stonehouse which is currently stocking some of my encaustic pictures  and also some of my acrylic flower paintings. Once I am up and running I will be able to hold them anywhere so I will be starting to look for other venues. It is even something I can do in people's homes. How exciting is this.

This picture shows two of my new encaustic pictures. These are the first I have painted on canvas rather than the usual glossy card. To see some more of my canvas encaustic work click here

Once I have got these classes underway, as I have already had a lot of interest following a demonstration day at the shop a couple of weeks ago, then I will contemplate the rubber stamping one.

Dragonflies Over Water.

This is an encaustic technique that I have not featured before (I don't think so anyway. This is called and indirect technique. Instead of applying the wax directly to the base glossy card, it is applied to a piece of tissue (as in the type you blow you nose on).

Three colours are added to the tissue - in this case brown, green and blue. This is then laid onto the card and heat is applied to the tissue with the tip of the iron which transfers a bit of wax to the white card. The design is built up from scratch just by adding little dabs of the different coloured waxes to make the picture. The fence posts and grasses were created by running the edge of the iron along the tissue.

The water line was shown by adding some of the dark blue wax to the bottom of the rock and then rubbing it vigorously with the tip of a finger. This generates enough heat to partially melt the wax again and smudge it around.

The dragonflies were added at the end using a stylus tool which is needed to crate the fine lines.

Landscape

A simple encaustic landscape to show how by just changing the colours you start with, from the ones you would expect, gives a different outlook on life.

Treble Clef

On a slightly different note (get it...joke...musical notes..!) here is a card made from my encaustic work again.
The blue background was made by putting different colours of blue wax onto the card and then whilst the wax was still liquid, tapping the surface with scruched up paper to give a pattern.
The second layer was done in the same way but with multiple colour bands of wax which when tapped with the scrunched paper gave the pattern but also blended the colours slightly.
The treble clef was added by drawing it with a block of red wax. Once the wax was set (which takes only seconds) the surface was buffed with the soft cloth to give it a shine (just like polishing furniture only I know which one I prefer to do). These layers were mounted onto the base A5 size card and finished off with corner peel-offs.

Fantasy World

Sometimes you just have to escape planet earth and go wandering around the universe. Here is a very bold piece of art showing the beauty of a planet far away! Notice the 3 moons (one half hidden by a mountain). These were made by heating a circular piece of metal and placing it against the wax that was already there from creating the sky. It was then carefully lifted away to remove some of the wax and leave the lighter circular impression. As for the spiral structures around some of the rugged hills - natural features of made by aliens..... who can say. The picture is A5 in size.

Seahorses 2

People like Seahorses. They are such delicate looking animals. In fact to me they look so fragile, I am surprised they survive. So here is a second encaustic rendition of them. This time the seahorses were stamped onto the piece of glossy card using Stazon black ink. You have to use a solvent based ink because hot wax will make water based ink run to give a muddy mess. However, for the solvent ink you do have to let it dry thoroughly or else that will run as well. Once it was dry the wax was applied over the top. You have to be careful with your choice of wax for this as some colours are very opaque while some are a lot more transparent. Also you have to use a lot of clear wax to ensure that you can see the stamped impression beneath. Once the watery background was in place, the seaweeds in the foreground and the overhanging rocks at the top were added.

Silk encaustic work

Now here is an unusual piece of encaustic work. The background is made of silk which started off as a plain white piece of material. A textured pattern, using coloured waxes, was created on a piece of white glossy card and then this was covered with the silk and some protective paper and heated with an iron. This melted the wax picture and the wax soaked into the silk and set to give a resist to the silk paint that was dripped onto it. Once the ink was dry, the whole thing was ironed several times with plenty of paper to melt out the wax leaving the silk. This was secured to a piece of card which in turn was mounted onto a card blank. The picture is another piece of encaustic work of a flower created with the tip of the iron. It is not supposed to be a real flower - just a made up one.

Dragonflies

A simple piece of encaustic work today. This is done by a technique called the Indirect method. Here, the wax is applied to a tissue and then this is melted from the tissue onto the card with the encaustic iron, a bit at a time so that you can control the shpes that you are applying to the card. The grasses and fence are done using the edge of the iron. The dragonflies are added with a stylus tool using metallic wax for the wings to give a hint of a sheen.

Seahorse Encaustic Card

Two layers of encaustic work were used to create this card. The background card was spread with blue, purple and red wax and then a random pattern applied with screwed up paper whilst the wax was kept warm on a hot plate. The picture was created by covering the glossy card with blue wax and again whilst keeping the wax warm a silhouette stamp of two seahorses was applied so that it lifted some of the wax off to leave an imprint. The pattern around the seahorses was made in the same way, applying the back and tail part of the large seahorse on the stamp. The two were matted together on white card and all applied to a blue A5 size card. Suitable coloured fibres down the spine then completed the look.

And a totally different look on this one

This one varied the base card colour by using black instead of white, and seen in the flesh, the waxes are metallic and pearlised which give a totally different look to what is effectively the same subject matter but it makes it into a night picture with a moon.

Contrasting Encaustic Art

It is amazing what a difference colour makes. This is nearly the same scene as I posted this morning but just by varying the colour of the wax you get a very different effect.