Post 34: Starting on the Back Panel

    Eventually, the whole panel was covered with clear medium, scraped, sprinkled, fused,  scraped again(not yet the whole way), and polished. I had made the mistake of leaving the back panel in place, and a lots of wax drips fell on it, which I had to clean up with scraper and Solvent.
  After drawing out the shape of the "window/frame", I started to put ochre pigments down on the back panel. In contrast to the heavily textured front panel, this one will remain more even looking, and I will not sprinkle pigments on the wax before fusing. :

Post 33: Finally throwing some wax on there!

    I suspect I had been procrastinating in a way, and was a little bit afraid to take the next step and get wax on my "pigment and pastel" underpainting. I had somehow envisioned to cover the whole panel with a couple of coats of medium. I knew the wax was going to darken and enrich the colors, but didn't know exactly how each pigment would react, having notice in previous tests that some light colored pigments like Ultramarine Red and Violet darken considerably, while others don't change a whole lot. I was therefore curious to see the effect the wax would have on the colors, and only covered a small corner of the panel which I considered sort of "finished".
    I applied the medium with a 2" brush in short strokes, rather than using smooth long strokes of my extra wide 6" Hake brush. The reason was that I had notices that long strokes sometimes tended to drag darker pigment particles and create unwanted lines. The surface ended up rather messy looking, with heavy cross brush texture and drips. After it cooled, I went back and filled in the low areas and small places I had missed, which made it look even worse.
    But it actually doesn't matter, because I scraped the extra medium off, and began to even out the layer, cutting down the high spots, and sometimes even filling out pits with the shavings. The scraping also polishes the surface, and removes the milkiness of the wax, enhancing the colors. I didn't try to get a smooth finish, the idea was to somewhat even the thickness of the wax, and see the underpainting better.
   The next step was to sprinkle small amounts of pigments of various contrasting colors(yellow, red ochre, dark red, orange, purple, green, caput mortum) on the surface, trying to place green specks over purplish areas, yellow over reddish areas, orange over greenish areas, etc...
   The layer was completely fused, and refused again in areas where the dry pigment had not been absorbed.  The effect was to create both specks and swirls, that I tried to control as best I could with the direction of the hot air blower. But there is a large part of chance that cannot be controlled, and one has to hope for "Happy Accidents". Things looked pretty good, though I am not sure the sprinkling was such a great idea... But since I stated that way, I will have to finish the whole panel the same way. When I got about half the panel covered in  medium, I could not resist putting some of the images on top to judge the effect:

Post 32: Printing with the new Epson R800

     It actually took a long time to get the images printed, the reason being than when I did the mock ups, I didn't care about the size of the images, and most were very small. So I basically had to make new images large enough to print at 300 DPI in the size required for a 4ft x6ft painting.
     In Particular, the Crucifix was very small, and rather ordinary, so I built one up with images of wood, various parts and pieces, and an image of a magnificent 17th century Ivory Museum Piece of the body alone:

    Same thing with the target, which started as a line drawing, to which I added texture, cross, bullet holes, and a red fish pin. I also warped to create a realistic pincushion shaped trompe l'oeil shadow:

  The light bulb eventually had to be redone, having printed too small:

  So I searched for images of lighted bulbs, old sockets, and twisted wire, layered , warped and ended up with an interesting image:

     I also needed a bigger image for the old fashion twisted cord. I could not find one I liked, so I ended up starting with this:

and after copy pasting and straightening sections, ended up with a nearly straight(on purpose) turquoise cord,

 which I can now turn any color I want, in this instance dingy beige.

Post 31: Just discovered a new Art Technique that works great to create Texture

   First, I painted the edges of the panel black, then I filled the screw holes in the frame with soft black medium, and finally, I brushed black medium on 3 sides, leaving the bottom plain black paint so it would not pick up trash from the floor. It looks rough, with a lot of brush marks, and I have yet to decide wether to fuse it or not.
   After covering the whole panel with pigments and pastels, I rubbed it and brushed the loose pigment off carefully, so as not to raise dust, into cans of reddish, yellowish, and darkish powders. They can be used for backgrounds on another painting, or sprinkled back into the wax before fusing for extra texture.
    The panel looks much too bright and much too smooth compared to the dirty old wall I am trying to emulate. First, I tried to lightly rub darker bluish, purplish and reddish pastel sticks over the surface. But it all sits on top, and blends in as soon as I rub with my finger a little, and I am afraid it will streak when I brush  clear medium over.
    There were some spots in a corner of the painting that looked like may be water had been sprinkled accidentally, and made round marks drying. I liked it, but they were too regular and too round. So I spit on the painting, not a long single shot slug, but a close up sprinkling spray. Perfect, it made randomly spaced irregular spots of varying sizes... I think I invented a new painting technique!
     I used a paper towel to blot out some of the bigger spots, which lifted pigment and caused them to dry lighter than the  background. I started dabbing and patting  around with the wet towel. It became loaded with pigment, which caused darker specks in the light areas. I started rubbing to create dirty smears.
    I noticed the spots that were left to dry without blotting came out darker than the background.
   After a while, I ran out of spit, my back got tired, and I had to stop, so I wrote this report, to which I am adding a preliminary picture showing the effect close up:

    The next day, after a good night rest and a few glasses of wine to replenish my saliva, I spent another half day rubbing pastels on, spitting, mopping it with a  paper towel, spreading it around dabbing, rubbing, patting with my fingers. I found I got different effects rubbing pastels on wet or dry, dabbing with a wet towel or a dry one, etc... I ran a dark shadow on two sides of the window frame.
    I reached a point where I pretty much stopped looking at the mockup and started just working at balancing things out and just making the panel look better. Finally, I thought I should take an overhead picture and take stock before I brushed any wax on.

    I want to take the pigment and pastel "underpainting" as far as possible, but leave room for sprinkling pigments, brushing colored medium on, and fusing.
     Also, I believe time has come to scale and print my images on the new Epson R800, cut them out, and lay them on the panel to see how things look.

Post 30: Thinking of Edges, an Important Detail

  For all the test pieces I have done so far, I didn't think about the edges. On a 1/4" panel, the wax rolls over the edge nicely and creates a slightly uneven edge that is quit attractive. Therefore an option would be to make a slightly smaller black cradle to glue the panel to, with say a 1" overhang, which would make the panel appear to float 1.5" off the wall. I think this could work well for small pieces.
   For large pieces however, I seem to prefer a traditional square edge panel, and I have learned that after the wax runs over the edge, even if I scrape it off, the wood will not accept black latex paint. I like the runs, but I don't want them to draw attention away from the painting.

    So edges will have to be painted black first. I will most likely end up leaving the runs of wax, I am even considering covering the edges with a thin coat of black wax first. That would make them more fragile in handling, but give them a wonderful sheen. And I really like the idea of leaving the drips and runs of wax as a testimony to the nature of the medium.

Post 29: A New Super Duper Big Ass Printer

    I spent two days cleaning and wasting ink trying to revive my not so old it seems 13"  Epson Stylus1800:

   But nothing could unclog the dried up nozzles, and I finally gave up. The damn thing had always been a hassle, and prone to clogging, though it made beautiful prints.
   After doing my research, and looking at the 13" Epson P400 and P600, I decides to replace it with a 17" Epson Sure Color P800
    The reviews are really good, and I felt I might need the larger format for some of my new Photo Encaustics. In any case, because of the large ink cartridges, intends up a lot cheaper in the long run. Also I got a better deal at Amazon, and have a $300 rebate coming from Epson, so it's ending up costing about $800, with a set of "not quite full" 60ml ink cartridges... Come on Epson, that's really cheap, you could put in full 85ml cartridges. 
    It's really a big and heavy machine, that doesn't fit in my computer cabinet, so it will live on a low shelf under my studio table.
    I had a hard time setting it up, and finally called Epson to help. I couldn't get the WiFi to work, so I ordered a long USB cable.

Post 28: First Full Scale Attempt: "Trompe l'Oeil Window"

    The special stretcher for this one has been built for a week already, and I have done two successful small scale tests, so I am not too concerned about this piece.

    The old wall background is mostly dirty yellow and red ochres, with touches of purple, red and green pigments sprinkled in. I will use Pastels to draw a realistic baseboard and a window frame with a cast shadow. The images will be printed with a shadow to achieve the Trompe l'Oeil effect

    I gave the panel three light coats of Golden Absorbent Ground to make it as white as possible for maximum contrast. I am using a different medium, but as with oils, I want the light to reflect back from the white ground through thin transparent layers of color. To me, it is what gives life to colors.
    I may have to acquire a few of my old favorite super lightfast Daniel Smithtransparent oil colors in pigment form, like Anthraquinoid Red and Naphtamide Maroon.
   First, I taped out the window frame and the baseboard and roughed them in with pigments and pastels. I then taped over them with the Yellow Delicate tape. I will almost completely finish the wall before I do these. as I want a clear line, and fusing would blurt too much.
   I started roughing in the wall rubbing pigments in with my fingers and removing the excess with a wide brush.

   I use a watercolor palette to put pigments in, and wear a dust mask for safety when working with pigments on large areas. The first 12" x 12" test is in the background:

  
   I will later use my full set of Rembrandt Soft Pastels to add details, lines, spots, etc...

   There is something a little nostalgic here,and significant as well, as this is how I started painting back in the late 70's. I have gone full circle over the last 40 years, and am back somewhere near where I started, except for the wax layer  the addition of colored medium, the sprinkling of pigments, the fusing, and the scraping.