Choppy Waters

"Choppy Waters"

Image size 12" x 24"

Encaustic

I decided to make an abstracted water painting with some desaturated greens along with a small amount of blue.  I like the effect it gives the painting.  I also did some shellac burns using white and blue.  That gives such a fun textural look.

Blue Wave

"Blue Wave"

Image size 24" x 60"

Encaustic

This may look familiar to you.  I did the same painting about 6 months ago in a different size ( 24" x 48" ).  A client came into the gallery that shows my encaustics and loved the painting but wanted it a bit longer.

Reproducing the painting was not easy.  Encaustic has so many layers of color and because I had added a glaze of white oil paint as I finished the original painting, it was really hard to figure out how dark I needed to make the colors in the new painting so that when I added the white glaze the colors would be the same value.  Also, because each layer is fused, the wax moves as it becomes molten so control is a relative thing. 

Below are photos of the two paintings next to each other. 

I made a few artistic changes in the new painting, but mostly I tried to replicate the original in color and feel.  

Shore Breaker

"Shore Breaker"

Image Size 24" x 48"

Encaustic

I think this is one of my favorite waves so far.  It's pretty heavy so I must have put a lot more wax on it than usual.  I know I kept layering and layering, building up the colors.  I wanted this painting to have a lot of movement and energy.  I love how the foam from previous waves gets drawn up into the new waves right before they break and tried to get that feeling in this painting. 

Agitation

"Agitation"

Image Size 11.5" x 24.5"

Encaustic

I painted this on oriented strand board (OSB) which I have always called chipboard.  It has thin, random pieces of wood glued together and they make a really interesting pattern.  I left areas of this painting with no color so that the wood shows through.  That's what those brown areas are but I don't think you can really see the texture in this photo.  

Usually, I try to get the wax in my paintings pretty smooth, but in this one, most of the white areas are very textural.  I almost added sand like in my last ocean encaustic, but I wanted to try getting texture with just the wax.  The tricky part is fusing the wax enough without losing the texture.

I used a little amber shellac to do a burn but I also got some clear shellac and added green powdered pigment to it and burned that.  The green doesn't show much but did add an interesting texture.

Midday

"Midday"

Image Size 15.5" x 15.5"

Encaustic

This is the first time I've worked in encaustic since I moved.  It took a while to find everything and set it up but once my wax was melted and ready to use, I was in heaven!  I've missed working in this medium and you'll probably be seeing a lot more over the next few weeks.