Recent Encaustic

Here is a recent encaustic painting. It was completed on the 6th of June, 2011 in Sedona, AZ. It is like an earlier version but this one has a heavier wax texture.

Grilling Encaustics

Here is my encaustic set up in Sedona, AZ using a grill at a low temperature suitable for the encaustic technique. R & F pigment blocks, Lyra encaustic crayons, Da Vinci Encausticks, Caran d'Ache crayons, Crayola crayons, Lyra Aquacolor clockwise.

110605 encaustic

Revisited Belzoni Series subject done in heavy encaustic.

New Encaustic Paintings

These are recent encaustic paintings. They were shipped to Healing Arts Center in Jasper, Indiana and all four sold 30 minutes after they were displayed in the gallery. May have to do some more!

When Just a Dab Will Do.

Most artists have some dry pastels in their studio. Whenever you need a little spot of a certain color or a special glaze here is a quick solution. Use either matt acrylic medium or gloss acrylic medium and scrape with a knife blade or use a cheese grater or rub the pastel on sandpaper and collect the dust. Wear a mask of course. Mix this unique color with the medium to make an acrylic paint or glaze. Several different pastels may be combined as well. Works fine if you wish to add the dry pigments to beeswax damar mix for encaustic. Just do not mix the acrylic mix with the encaustic mix.

Natural Colors Using Ochre.

In my last post YELLOW OCHRE was listed as one of the six necessary colors.

If you add varying amounts of YELLOW OCHRE or YELLOW OXIDE to the colors I showed in the circle last time you will get colors seen in the natural world.

Starting with the YELLOW MEDIUM  on the left add some YELLOW OCHRE   on the right to get the color in  the middle.

Continuing:

Do the same to YELLOW GREEN, GREEN, BLUE GREEN, ULTRAMARINE BLUE, BLUE, BLUE VIOLET,  VIOLET, RED VIOLET, RED, RED ORANGE, ORANGE and BLACK.

By varying the amounts you will get numerous colors. By adding WHITE, and / or BLACK to the mix the tints and shades will be very useful in painting from nature.

All You Really Need. Colorwise.

Paint manufacturers offer an endless number of colors to tempt us but what they do not tell us is that we only need six colors plus black and white to mix everything they offer.

YELLOW MEDIUM
PHTHALO GREEN (blue cast)
PHTHALO BLUE (green cast)
THIO VIOLET or QUINACRADONE MAGENTA (ACRA)
RED LIGHT (Scarlet) (Cadmium Red Light) or (Napthol Red Light)
***THIS IS NOT LIGHT RED WHICH IS      A BRICK COLOR***
YELLOW OCHRE or YELLOW OXIDE
WHITE
BLACK

With these six colors you can mix a complete color wheel with saturated pure colors.
Mix YELLOW LIGHT by adding WHITE to YELLOW MEDIUM.
The color circle is easy:
Y-YYG-YGG-G-BGG-BBG-B-BBV-BVV-V-RVV-RRV-R-RRO-ROO-O-OOY-OYY

Add YELLOW OCHRE to any of these to alter saturation.
Add WHITE and / or BLACK to any for browns and natural greens or to make tints and shades.

Master color and do not let paint companies master you.

Don't Throw Away Your Seafood Forks!

Seafood forks make great encaustic tools. I got a set of them at the supermarket. The spatula end is good for applying hot wax and smoothing it out whilst the forked end is good for texture.
http://www.legendcookshop.co.uk/seafood-forks-8695-0.html