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. 

Post 27: I probably should have left it alone!

   I have often said that the hardest thing to know for an Artist is when to stop. How many times have I flipped through pages of books giving a step by step painting lesson, and decided that step 8 was much better than the final result... In fact, it is always almost the case.
   But then again, my purpose here is testing and learning the technique. So I mixed pale shades of five different blues and purple in medium, and applied them at random with a palette knife, troweling one color into another and layering them on top of each other. I ended up with a pretty thick crusty layer, onto which I sprinkled pigments of all the colors I had used , plus specks and spots of brighter purple, deep Lacquer Red, Mayan Green and even some Bright Orange.
   I proceeded to fuse with the blow gun on hight heat, and after cooling I scraped the wax back smooth and thin enough to show the transparencies.The picture actually does not do justice to the subtle variety and depth of colors.
   

    I am not sure I like it BETTER than what I had before, but the colors are rich and glowing. It doesn't look anything like what I planned either, but then I probably should get used to that, as both the wax and the Artist take a life of their own, and the mock up is just a starting point anyhow. The point is to end up with something I like, rather than reproducing the original concept.
    Before I play any more with this panel, I think I am going to start on "Trompe l'Oeil Window", and tackle it full size. I don't expect the ochres to be as difficult as the deep blues.

Post 26: Wisely Starting Small

   I guess that big 4ft x 6ft panel scared me a little, so I built a quarter size one to do a study for the final painting. It will allow me to hopefully figure out how to get these wonderfully rich and glowing Blue, Purplish and Caput Mortum tones.
    I made a mock up of the background alone, since it has to be nearly completed before I incorporate the images. I can't print them right now anyway because my old Epson R1800 is totally clogged up. I am going to have  to get a new Archival Printer, and am looking at the new Epson P800, which is getting great reviews everywhere, and is sold with a $300 rebate until December 31. And it is a 17" printer, the R1800 was only a 13".

    
    I want the horizontal stripes to stay sharp, so I taped them off, worked the colors with pigments and pastels, and put a layer of clear medium on top. I figured out quickly that if the pigment layer was too thick, it would not incorporate into the fused wax. I also realized that colors got a lot darker when covered with medium. So I am now keeping the color layer thin by brushing off the excess with a soft Hake Brush, and am keeping my colors much lighter. I want to be able to build up a layer of blue and dark purples with touches of different tones of lightly colored transparent wax that will run into each other in fusing, hopefully creating interesting color variations...
   I covered my wax stripes with tape, and am now working on the marron bottom area, starting with yellow ochre and red ochres. Finally, with the rest taped off and covered in paper, I did the large blue area at the top with mostly Ultramarine Blues and Purples and Mayan Purple. 
   After brushing on a layer of clear medium, I scraped it back as thin and smooth as possible, and polished it with paper towels:

   It still a long way from what I am trying to do, but it's actually pretty nice.
   I almost hate to mess it up piling more wax on!

Post 25:First Freezer Test Results

     Two panels have been in deep freeze at 2°F overnight. I took them out and threw them on the tile floor hard, and again and again, harder and harder. I then smacked them as hard as I could on the top of the work bench, over and over, till my hands hurt and the panels themselves split.
   NOTHING CAME LOOSE, I PASSED THE FREEZER TEST, ALLELUIA!
    The first panel was masonite primed with Golden Absorbent Acrylic  Gesso, one strip rubbed with  blue pigment and coated with medium, 3 strips painted with Red Yellow and Ochre tinted medium and scraped back thin and smooth(no milkiness). Some areas were thicker than others, some were fused, some not. 

    The second was the basic white primed (I assume acrylic based) Plywood Underlayment sanded smooth, partly lightly, partly very heavily(almost down to the wood. Half of the panel was primed with Holly Grail Gesso. I then rubbed in pigments of different colors, coated the whole thing with medium, and fused it.

  The other unprimed side was sanded smooth to remove the black cross cut marks and primed with Holly Grail Gesso. Two stripes were rubbed with Ultramarine blue pigment and shaded from dark to light using the white powder of the gesso, coated with medium and scraped back. One was fused, the other not. The middle stripe is just clear medium on gesso, the right half fused, the left not, and scraped smooth. The last stripe is Red Ochre colored medium scraped back very thin in places to show the  background in transparency.

    So it would seem that some people may be worrying excessively about adhesion. As I said before, from my experience, wax sticks to damn nearly EVERYTHING. 
    Nothing came loose AT ALL, so it would seem it doesn't matter that much after all which Gesso is used, and that even the Primed Underlayment Plywood is fine once sanded smooth and given a tooth.  Even  fusing doesn't seem to matter either, even with the chalky Holly Grail Primer.
     Now, the reasons for my successful "Freezer Test" may be due in part to the technique I use of scraping the wax back thin and smooth, and in the process putting enormous pressure that improves adhesion to the substrate. The test may have failed had I built up numerous layers of medium, grooved and filled, etc...
   But for what I am planning to do, I think I am going to quit worrying, stop all that preliminary testing, and go to work on an actual panel. Before tackling a big 4ft x 6ft , I will do a small 24" x36' version of "MUG SHOTS" on a sanded underlayment plywood panel double primed with thinned(to minimize brush marks) Golden Absorbent Acrylic Gesso and sanded very smooth:

Post 24:Dry pigments or Paint?

   It occurred to me the other day that the Holly Grail Gesso had to use as a binder either Wheat Paste, Gum Arabic, Casein, or Methyl Cellulose, and that rather than rubbing pigments in the ground, I could possibly mix them into paint with one of these four traditional binders. It seemed worth testing the idea, and I already had Wheat Paste for Book Binding, so I ordered Gum Arabic and Casein.
   I used a board primed with Holly Grail Gesso and Ultramarine  pigment for the test, mixing it with increasing amounts of water and Wheat Paste, Gum Arabic and Casein(left to right). 
   The Wheat Paste was a little lumpy, and looks grainy, with heavy brush marks . 
   The gum Arabic went on smooth  and adhered well, but adhesion decreased as the dilution increased, and it tended to pool and leave gaps in the coverage(a little Ox Gall  helped). The white from the gesso did not seem to mix with the paint, and the colors are rich.
   The casein has a white milky color to start with, and produced much lighter very flat colors with excellent coverage. It was made even worse by mixing with the white pigment in the gesso when over brushed. I don't like it, it kills the colors, and pastel tones are not my thing.

    I also made  swatches of different colors of Rembrandt Soft Pastels(left side), first rubbing the stick on , then smoothing and rubbing hard with my finger. The pastels definitely produced the most intense opaque color and very good adhesion to the board, without getting a chalk look from the white gesso particules, I assume because of the binder in the pastel sticks. 
   I had started with a swatch of pure Bluempigment rubbed into the gesso(top left), and found the coverage was uneven. The more I rubbed, the worse it got. I had used an Ultramarine Blue from Earth Pigments, which was cheaper than the Sinopia Ultramarine Blues, so I made a side by side test swatches on the bottom, and the basic rule "You get what you pay for" applies here as it does most of the time. The Sinopia Ultramarine produces a richer color with very even coverage, which does'nt seem to degrade with rubbing. That makes me wonder if the swatches with binder would have come out better too.
    The lessons are: 
      1. Binders don't seem to help, so I will use a combination of rubbed raw pigments and pastels for my underpainting.
     2. DO NOT SKIMP on pigments, Sinopia's products are definitely better. Plus they tell you precisely the properties and have a much wider range of colors.

Post 23: Well, not quite, let's make sure I am using the right ground

    Well, over in over in the tutorials and books about encaustics, I have heard and read warnings about using the proper ground, lest the wax fall off.
    I have not done encaustics before, but I have worked with wax a great deal in sculpture and relief, both microcrystalline and beeswax, and my experience has been that hot melted wax sticks to damn near ANYTHING. I have scraped it from wood, stone, formica,white slick tailboard, masonite, glass, plastic, paint, metal, etc... In fact, when I was making models for lost wax casting of bronzes, the only way I found to keep them from sticking to my work bench was to rub the surface of the bench with mineral oil. It still stuck, but that made it a lot easier to scrape off.
    That said, I believe in listening to experienced people and learning a new craft from them as much as I can. So I dutifully read the instructions from various source to make a rabbit skin glue and other special grounds. The people at Enkaustikos are particularly vehement about NOT using Acrylic Gesso(click on image below), and use "the freezer test":

     "R &F Encaustics" worked with Ampersand to develop and sell their own Archival "Encausticbord". But the panels are too small and expensive for my project.
     "Evans Encaustics" claims the best ground is their own non acrylic "Holly Grail Gesso" , and offer it in a range of wonderful colors that could be used for underpainting, which is an idea I like, eliminating one step in the process. So I ordered a quart of white Holly Grail Gesso, and have been using it on small masonite panels for my "Learning Experiments". The gesso goes on very smoothly with a wide camel hair brush, and is loaded with pigments, so it covers well, and dries fairly quickly.
    What I found a little strange though was that it was very chalky, and came off on my fingers if rubbed, even lightly. Sanding it lightly would practically remove it completely, and I just used a paper towel to smooth the light brush marks.
    I had by then received a good selection of pigments, and decided to do a color chart with pigments mixed in medium, and scrape each stripe from thick to very thin to judge the transparency(I hate solid opaque colors):

    I had not fused the medium, and noticed thin areas tended to break off.   
   I like to start an underpainting directly by rubbing pigments in the ground and drawing with pencils and pastels, and the results were very smooth and good looking, allowing smooth gradations of tones(2 bottom strips):

   But when I rubbed in the Ultramarine Blue pigment, it mixed with the white powdery gesso ground, and I could never achieve the full pigment color intensity, as I could on a panel primed with the alternative "Golden Absorbent Ground"(top strip). Not really a big problem, especially since the Golden Product doesn't cover the brown Masonite as well, leaves heavy brush marks, and would need to be sanded and applied in at least two coats, which means more time and money preparing the panels. 
   I also like to scrape the medium back to a very thin layer. The bottom strip, which was fused before scraping held up really well, but the middle strip which was NOT fused tended to pull off when the medium became thin. The top strip done on Golden Ground held up well without being fused, especially the area I had sanded smooth on the right.
   Just to see, I dropped some molten medium on both boards and let it harden:

   The drop on the Golden Absorbent Gesso (right) could not be pried off, but the drop on the Holly Grail Gesso popped right up with the layer of gesso. Not so good. There definitely has to be heavy fusing when using the later for the medium to stick properly, and that worries me. So I wondered why bother, when it seems to stick better to the Golden Acrylic Gesso, which according to Enkaustikos is an absolute NO NO? Time I suppose for a "Freezer Test"!
    I left both the Golden and the Holly Grail primed boards in the freezer overnight.

Post 22: Ready, sort of...

     After a day of drying, which I spent sorting old papers and cleaning up, one last thick coat of Teak Oil did the job, and after letting it soak in about 30 mn, I wiped it off with paper towels and polished it with a rag. The result: a 49.5" x 171" table, and brighter lights than I ever envisioned. I started assembling the 4ft x 6 ft panel for my first serious piece, using primed 1x4's and 1/4" Sureply Plywood Underlayment. 
    It is a High Quality Premium "Green" Birch Plywood which has a white priming on one side and a Lifetime Warranty. The sheets are very flat and smooth on both sides, better than the more expensive standard Birch Plywood.

   I am building this  panel 4" thick because it has a 17" x 25" window like recessed area, and a "floating" back panel:

    I am also building a standard 4ft x 6ft panel using primed 1x2's made of hardboard. I am switching to these because they don't warp like real wood, and the plywood either.
     The only issue is the priming of the plywood, which I am going to have to mostly sand off to replace with the special ground.

Post 21: Getting ready for "Bigger" things

    I wanted to start working on larger pieces, which meant I needed a large work table. So after I cleared my desk entirely and moved all the computer equipment back where it used to be in the large African Cabinet, I retrieved two old sheets of plywood from storage, and screwed them down on top of the desk/library table, and bought two sheets of masonite to cover the surface.  I suppose I could have started working right there and then, but the edges looked really rough, and I thought I would make it a finished permanent huge Desk/Worktable and try to make the whole studio look better, and more organized. 
    So I got some very smooth poplar 1x2 strips, and fitted them around the edges with mitered corners, flush with the top of the masonite. I sanded them smooth and stained them Dark Walnut. I chose to finish both the wood and the masonite with Teak Oil, which is supposed to soak in, impregnate the wood and harden, leaving a tough surface. The problem is that so far, the masonite has soaked up 2 quarts of oil, and still seems to want more... I am letting it dry a few days before attempting a second coat.
    In the meantime, when the weather went from sunny bright to gray and rainy, I realized I would need some lighting above the table on dark days. It just happened that I noticed at Lowes some  Utilitek Pro 4 ft LED flush mount Ceiling Fixtures :

   They burn little power(37w), are quite bright at 3200 lumens, and are supposed to last a very long time. They are also much better looking than fluorescent fixtures and well finished, made of smooth wrap around Anodized Aluminum. The light quality is also much better, pretty close to daylight.
    I bought three, and mounted them to a pair of aluminum 1" square tubes, so I could hang them down from my 20 ft ceiling as a single neat strip. 

Post 20: Trying to improve a Test

    I incorporated six left over images printed on Japanese Paper into the Yellow Background with a Grid Panel, fused them in, built up the clear medium over the images, and scraped it back as smooth as possible. This is something I am actually still learning to do, and getting a slick surface is not easy. My old 1.25" scraper always seems to leave scratches and low spots. I don't mind having some, that I can fill with the oil sticks, but am trying to get more control over the process and master the scraping task.
   I found that one has to use very smooth strokes with a fair amount of pressure, and the gradual start and finish are critical. One has to keep rotating the panel and buffing it often to see the bad areas.
   I went on an Internet search for a wider scraper, and found that Kemper makes a 2" Scraper Tool. I had a hard time locating one though, as it seems to have been discontinued. Finally found a place called New Mexico Clay that had 3 in stock,  and ordered all 3 of them:

     In the meantime, I ended up with this when I incorporated 6 left over images on Japanese Paper. They actually worked pretty well because there were no really dark areas on that panel. They just got a yellow cast. But I am not happy with the way the panel looks, and need to figure out what more to do with it to tie things together and make it work:

     So I used Photoshop to experiment a little and came up with a mockup of an idea I like, using a red string actually "tying the images together", running through small holes in the panel. Then I added a hanging seal with the braided string also attached through holes:

  

    But before threading the string, I thought I would apply a Red Patina with an Alizarin Crimson Oil Stick. Also, it seemed that the images needed to be visually bound, and I used the modified Pouncing Wheel to run dotted lines following the outside lines of the grid. 
      I rubbed the oil stick well into the holes and scratches, and used my gloved finger to spread the pigmented oil over the entire panel. Alizarin Crimson has a wonderful rich transparent glow:

      I wiped most of the Red oil paint off with paper towels, being careful to leave enough in the scraped wax surface scratches and holes, and a thin film around the edges:

      In a few hours, the oil was actually dry enough to drill the holes and weave the red string through. I used 6 cords of 3 different colors plaided together to make the cord to hang wax seal.

      I felt the big 2" seal was too big for such a small painting, but the 3/4" were not big enough. The only choice offered is a 1 1/8" wax seal, so I redesigned its Artwork eliminating the inner ring of text, and ordered it made to use as a signature on smaller pieces:

Post 19: Expanding and Refining my Color Palette

   I like the natural earth colors I already have, and they will probably be much used in future paintings, but I want to expand and refine my choices as far as Reds, Blues, Greens and Purples. So I went back looking at a few suppliers, which interestingly enough seem to carry different ranges of pigments. I finally settled on SINOPIA PIGMENTS, and placed an order for 9 reasonably prices pigments: 

DC7300/75 DC7300 Cadmium Orange Deep weight: 75g jar

$18.00 x 1

$18.00

---

DC1100/75 DC1100 Cadmium Yellow Medium weight: 75g jar

$16.00 x 1

$16.00

---

DG133/75 DG133 Chrome Oxide Green Opaque weight: 75g jar

$9.00 x 1

$9.00

---

DC90C/75 DC90C Ultramarine Red, antique pink weight: 75g jar

$11.00 x 1

$11.00

---

799G1001A/50 799G1001A Mayan Green Pigment weight: 50g jar

$9.00 x 1

$9.00

---

DCV8/75 DCV8 Ultramarine Violet, Reddish Light weight: 75g jar

$11.00 x 1

$11.00

---

DCF36/75 DCF36 Ultramarine Blue, reddish weight: 75g jar

$9.00 x 1

$9.00

---

DCFG75/75 DCFG75 Ultramarine Blue, greenish light weight: 75g jar

$9.00 x 1

$9.00

---

799V1000/50 799V1000 Mayan Violet Pigment weight: 50g jar

$9.00 x 1

$9.00

  

     I am of course going to keep mixing pigments in the Encaustic Medium, but I have discovered that simply sprinkling pigments on the wax and fusing can create just the kinds of visual textures I like, with fine detail, lines and specks. A lot of pigments are very dark in their natural form, and need to be mixed in a medium for the color to show. So I paid particular attention to the more brightly colored pigments that still have good tinting strength, so they can serve both purposes.

     Of course, I would love to use the more exotic rare pigments such as Cinnabar, Azurite, Malachite, Lapis, but at $30 for 10 or 20g... 

     I was intrigued with the collection of Mayan pigments, and ordered the violet to test, as they seem to have mostly very poor tinting strength.

Post 18: Another Panel turns out Pretty good

   After scraping the clear medium buildup over the images down and getting the whole surface of the panel as smooth and even as I could, I polished  wax with paper towels. Then I rubbed the Alizarin Crimson oil stick all over the surface, and worked it into every scratch and pit in the surface, before wiping most of it off with paper towels. 
   Finally, I applied the three good luck Chinese signs Wax Seals, and my own large Signature Seal, using traditional Red Seal Wax:

  
   I know most people won't care about the subject matter, that magnificent 19th Century British Wax Ecorché by Joseph Towne, but I do. Besides, I like the feel and look of the piece, the colors, the visual Texture, the repetition of the Seals.
    I believe I am beginning to come up with a distinctive look.

Post 17: More Experiments and Tests

    One thing I have learned so far is when you work with encaustics, it's a good idea to work on several panels at the same time.
    I was at Michael's yesterday, and picked up a 12"x12" plywood panel for half price to compare to the masonite. I am thinking birch plywood my be archivaly better than Masonite, and provide better adhesion of the wax medium as well. Also, obviously, the birch plywood is very light in color compared to the masonite, and I wondered if I might skip the priming, which will be a pretty expensive and time consuming thing on big panels.
    So I sanded the panel smooth, and rubbed dry earth pigments from a Sample Box I bough in Provence at the ochre quarries of Roussillon many years ago, directly into the grain of the plywood, in shades of ochre, and finished with touches of black and a red ochre dot. I lightly blew the excess pigment off the board, which left plenty of color. Then I covered the panel with several coats of clear medium, and after cooling started scraping the wax back down to a thing slick layer. I am not crazy at all about the way the grain of the plywood ends up showing  through. I suppose that means a layer of Gesso  is going to be necessary to fill the grain, and if I do that, I might just as well consider doing the "underpainting" with colored gesso instead of pigments.

     Another thing I have figured out by now is that I like purely visual textures better than actual rough textures. It is good to lay the medium on roughly with short brushstrokes in all directions, but I always seem to end up scraping the wax back down to a smooth layer as even as possible, and polished to a high gloss, which brings out the details in the visual texture. I suspect this will become a hallmark of my work in encaustics, even though, or may be perhaps because it goes "against the grain" of the medium.
    At the same time, I added a couple of images to a background I had just created. First, I rolled them on hard, then I heated the panel to soften the wax a little so the images could be pushed down further into the surface with the roller. I burnished the edges down. Then I built up a surface of clear medium over the images alone, feathering it out. I will scrape it back smooth and even:

Post 16: And the Winner is...

    It is amazing to me how quickly things can change when working with encaustics. Every time one fuses a layer, there is an almost magic moment when one has to relinquish control, let the melted wax flow, colors mix, and the whole surface rearrange itself into something hopefully more beautiful that what one had before... Sometimes, it doesn't happen, but there is no going back. However, one quickly learns that there is always a way forward. A scraper can reveal patterns of unexpected beauty, and there is always the option of rubbing oil in cracks and pits, sprinkling or rubbing in dry pigments, burning shellac, adding more colored medium with loaded or dry brushes. It's messy:

    I usually place the panel on the "Shabat Tray" when I do that to warm it, so I can do longer smoother strokes with a loaded brush an lay down thinner laters of medium. One has to be careful not to heat the panel too much, lest the wax on it starts melting. But then, happy accidents happen, and you can achieve in this way a sort of "reverse fusing", where the bottom layers melt first. 
   I worked on my two panels side by side at the same time, and got them both to a point I liked them, similar in many ways, but yet quite different. 
   The next step was to lay down the four printed images: the plumb line, the envelope, the crucifix, and the Agnus Dei. The images printed on thin Sumi Paper easily stuck to the medium, the thicker ones printer on Epson Matte paper were more of a challenge. I used brayers to push them down into the wax, I used a burnisher around the edges. Finally, I warmed the panel to slightly to soften the wax, covered it with wax paper, and put a lot of pressure with a hard rubber brayer to force the images into the surface as much as possible.
     I brushed a light coat of clear medium just over the images, and the Japanese paper literally melted in and blended nicely into the background. It took several coats to blend in the thicker Epson Paper.
     I fused the images, and things looked pretty good, except for some cloudiness over the images, which I carefully scraped out. I probably should have left things alone at this point.
     But instead, I got the idea of dry brushing some transparent yellow ochre medium around the top and some red ochre along the bottom of the wall. After fusing, the panel with the thin images looked rather good, but the other showed excessive buildup and cloudiness. So I scraped it back down. I went too far, and had to add some clear medium over the images, scraped some more, touched up, rubbed oil paint and wiped it, etc... I ended up reworking the one that I thought pretty good too.
    Anyhow, after messing with them a while more this morning, I thought I would stop and look at them for a while.  So here is the one with the Japanese Paper Prints:

    And here is the one with the thicker and brighter Epson Paper Prints:

      I am not sure at this time which one wins. The Trompe l'Oeil effect is stronger in the latter, but I like the former too...
      But I am pretty sure I've got something going there, and am ready to try to go for the "Real Thing".
      Before I can do that however, I have to completely re arrange my long "desk", which means finding a place to put all that stuff!

Post 15: Practice for the First "Serious" Painting

    Practice is fun enough, and I obviously need a lot more of it before I have tried all the available techniques techniques, and figure out which to use for a particular painting, and in what order. There is a certain amount of unpredictability built in the medium, and one often have to go with the flow, exploit an accident, and end up with something different from what they intended. 
     That works well for abstract work, but I am planning to do semi realistic Photo Encaustics from mockups designed in Photoshop, so I need a certain amount of control. I will probably have to do a small experimental panel for each larger piece to determine the best way to proceed in order to achieve a particular color and texture.
      And this is what is at hand today. I want my first big "serious" 48"x72" painting to be "Trompe l'Oeil Window":

    I have just begun a small panel that will be a test, and hopefully guide me to achieve something close, and as good or better than the Mockup.  It doesn't look too bad for a start, with just pigments rubbed in the paper, and a couple of layers of fused medium:

   

   The final Piece will definitely be different, since I have lost the total control of Oil Painting. But then, the various textures I layered and manipulated in Photoshop are just that,textures, and I have no need to match them exactly, as long as the wall comes out looking like an old grimy wall. 

     I put together a group of images on a 8"x10" background to use for testing, including the letter, the crucifix, and the plumb line, all with drop shadows:

    I printed it as a baseline test on my familiar Epson  Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte. It looked great. I then cut and taped a piece of Japanese Calligraphy Sumi paper to sheet a plain paper, so it wouldn't get jammed and torn in the printer, and printed the same image on the glossy side of the Sumi paper. I was quite amazed at how well it came out. Granted, there is a little less contrast and saturation, but that could easily be compensated for with a curve. I photographed them side by side:

    My original intention was to use the Japanese paper because it is so thin it literally disappear into the wax. But in the process, it becomes transparent, and the background will show through the very light areas where there is little ink. That was not a problem with the stylized Solarized Inverted mostly black nude image, but it will be with these. If I want the images to look real enough for a Trompe l'Oeil effect, I will have to print them on a paper that doesn't become transparent at all. I will have to test the Epson Matte for that.

    The images will have to be perfectly cut out, but I am afraid a hard edge drop shadow might look unrealistic. I may have to paint them with oils.

   Also, the images obviously will have to go on last,  and be literally embedded in fairly soft wax with a  brayer, before they are barely covered by a thin layer of highly buffed very transparent medium. Evans Encaustic offers a High Shine Top Coat that might be appropriate.  

    That means that all the wall texture, encaustic and oil work will need to be done first.

     I cut out all the images, using scissors, x-Acto knives, and small snap blade cutters. Scissors produce the smoother curves and the thinest edge. Cutters are the worst, raising a sort of burr that has to be burnished. The thinner X-Acto blade is somewhere in between. 

   When placed on a light ochre panel and rubbed on the wax, the Sumi prints look definitely darker and duller than the Epson Matte paper, but show more texture, and are less"in your face". Of course, the Epson prints could be made darker:

    I placed the two side by side on the WALL TEST 1 PANEL, and can't really decide which I like best:

    So I made a second almost identical Test Panel on a piece of Masonite primed with two coats of Golden Absorbent Ground, rubbing yellow ochre, red ochre, and black pigments on with my fingers:

    The texture is very different from paper, as the brush marks are quite sharp, even though I used a very soft big goat hair brush, so the result is rather different, but not so much once it is covered with two coats of clear medium and buffed:

     Well, now is the real test, one panel with the Sumi Prints, the other with the Epson Prints, after doing some texture work scraping, scribbling, adding colored medium, rubbing oil in pits and scratches, sprinkling and rubbing dry pigments into the wax, and fusing multiple times.