Powerful Peak

"Powerful Peak"

Image size 24" x 24"

Encaustic

I started this painting by painting and fusing a layer of clear medium as a base.  I knew that I wanted to have red bits peeking through the finished painting.  The red oil paint that I used had a very pink tone to it, which surprised me because it was a cadmium red.  Anyway, when I added white encaustic, it was even more pink in the wave crest.  I'm happy with the amount that is still showing and with the color palette.  The white is very textured and has great movement in person.

Shore Break

"Shore Break"

Image size 16" x 20"

Encaustic

I took a break from using a lot of texture on the foam of the wave break for this painting.  I wanted the textural part of the painting to be in the foreground in the sand. I did a shellac burn in that area to give it an interesting effect.

The Pond

"The Pond"

Image Size 12" x 32"

Encaustic

Well, this was fun to paint as well as a being a learning experience.  I don't usually work this large in encaustic, but I really like big paintings.  This is still small compared to watercolors, oils and acrylics that I've done.  Working in encaustic is more time consuming and takes a lot more material than the other mediums that I use.  Each layer needs to be fused before adding more wax and it becomes more difficult to control the wax as the layers build.  I had real problems with the flowers in this painting because the blues and green surrounding them kept migrating into the flowers.  I kept scraping the flowers and adding more white, but continued to have the same problem.  I put a layer of clear medium over the entire painting and fused that before trying to add white again.  That did solve the problem of the greens and blues migrating, but the white continued to move uncontrollably.  I finally got it pretty close to how I wanted it and then added orange oil pastel to edges of the lily pads and brought some of the color into the white flowers which made them much more interesting.  I like the sketchy look of the pastels so I also added some lines with white oil pastel to the lilies.

I'm really happy with this one and can't wait to polish it.

Palm Tree Trio

"Palm Tree Trio"

Image Size 6.5" x 5.5"

Encaustic

I've painted this scene many times because it is one of my favorite views in Laguna Beach.  The reference photo was taken from Heisler Park looking down to the beach.

I painted the support red because I really liked the red specks peeking through on the wave painting I finished recently.  I wanted to see if I could get a similar look using red oil paint to start the painting rather than coating the surface with red wax.  I also used oil pastel to add some detail as finishing touches to the painting.

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