Post 9: Designing my Signature Seal

   I knew I wanted a large round seal, so I used this one as a template of sorts:

  
     I started to rearrange the letters to read "CARPE DIEM" around the top, and my name  around the bottom. I looked through my file of esoteric images, and found an interesting Star and All Seing Eye. I then worked on some stylized version of my longtime "symbols": the Top, the Dice, the Level/Plumbline, and the Gear.
   I want the seal to look old and worn, with almost a Medieval feel. I tried a bunch of fonts out, and found one I liked a lot that looks both old and ragged. It's called "Trattatello":

   I had to reshape some of the letters slightly, widen the C and the E, redesign the Q, and curve the words to fit around the border. I included my birthdate in Roman Nunerals. 
  This is what I ended up with:

    I made a mockup of what it would look like in red wax:

   I ordered the largest 45 mm seal from Nostalgic Impressions , and it cost me $110. I also ordered pellets of red wax. I should have it in about a week.
   A small 3/4" seal would have been only $45, and I may yet design one using just the center part with the initials to use on small pieces. 

Post 8: Using a Wax Seal for Signature

   My intent was from the start to design a wax seal to sign the encaustic paintings. I have always loved old letters and old manuscript documents with Wax Seals. 
   In fact, I had one made a long time ago, but have not used it much because it is too plain. I also have a collection of Chinese seals, and had one made over there that is supposed to be my name...   There are several ways to apply the seal, first on the document itself:

     More important documents have a reenforced bottom flap around which run strips of velum on which the seal is applied with wax on both sides:

     This is an interesting "indentured" deed, which was cut in half in a zigzag pattern so the two halves could be matched. That's where the word indentured came from:

Some documents have strips cut directly out of them on which the seals are applied, but it seems rare:

   Finally some documents have a woven group of distinctive color threads run through holes in the reenforced bottom edge in various patterns, both ends are then woven together, and the seal is applied to these "pendants":

    There can be numerous long "pendants" with multiple seals, such as this amazing papal bulle:

   I like that very much, and would want to actually use a special cord woven out of colored threads, and actually running through four small holes in the corner of the painting in a consistent pattern such as this:

    I would like my seal to looks ancient, with may be a crest, an  ornate cross, Esoteric Symbols, my motto(Carpe Diem), and of course my name or initials. It would be applied directly to smaller pieces, but for larger pieces, I would use a plaid cord made of rainbow colored cotton or linen threads (a symbol of my palette). 
    Lets now look up close at some seals I particularly like:

   By and large, they are pretty simple, and I prefer them to the more ornate Heraldic seals:

Post 7: Time to Play with the Wax!

   My only try so far was a small wooden panel covered with speckled Japanese paper paper and several layers of natural yellow beeswax, into which I incorporated a thin piece of dried seaweed(the kind used to wrap sushi), and a red dogwood leaf. Finally, I laid on ragged pieces of gold leaf and burnished them in, added a narrow strip of copper foil, scored straight lines with a toothed wheel and a circle with a compass, which I filled with black oil paint. Finally, I rubbed some deep reddish oil paints on with my finger, and polished the whole surface with a soft cloth. Basic, but not too bad:

  The encaustics need a solid rigid absorbant support. A wood panel can work, or masonite. They even make a special White Primed Encaustiboard in small sizes. I will have to make my own boards, and that should be a lot cheaper. 
   So I went by Lowes and got two sheets of plain brown Masonite($8 each), and had them cut together in half 3 times to make 16 roughly 24"x 24" panels. Then I had then cut 4 of these in half twice to make sixteen 12" x 12" panels. The cuts were not very precise, so I actually ended up with everything from 11.5" to 12". I then went by Home Depot and got a dozen 8 ft primed 1x2 Trim Boards($3.52 each).
     I made a dozen of panels 11.5" x11.5". I used acid free Yes Paste to glue acid free paper to them rather than white gesso. 
    I wanted to start with a Test Panel for "Mug Shots", so I designed  a simplified square mockup image in Photoshop with the same colors and textures:

     I tried a number of ways to create a well defined black nude image on a white background, inverting the original, layering it with black and using Hard Light mix, etc.. The best looking was obtained using one of the Solarisation Filters in Topaz, with some additional curves and burning in:

   I printed it on two different kinds of Japanese calligraphy paper. One has to tape both ends of the light weight paper to a sheet of regular paper in order to run it through the printer. 
   Not wanting to "mess up" one of my new boards for my first try, I started practicing on just a sheet of paper, and ended up taking it all the way to a "sort of finished test", that I am not really satisfied with. I showed it to Rachel, and her judgment fell guillotine like: "I don't like it, it's too garish!"

    She is totally right of course. I have to admit it is a long way from the mockup, there are too many colors, the yellow and green drips are too sharp, the texture lacks sophistication.  But it is only a first test, and I really learned a great deal doing it.
    Starting with a plain sheet of paper, I brushed on a coat of bright blue medium and a coat of red ochre medium, both mixed from piments. I kept adding random touches of medium  with brushes in yellow ochre, green, red, red ochre, blue, and a deep transparent ultramarine blue mixed from an oil stick, building up layer upon layer, fusing them lightly and scraping back. Then I cut grooves in the wax all the way back to the white paper,  filled them with a blue, a deep marron, and yellow ochre, and scraped the wax back to get neat straight stripes. I then worked over the whole surface to smooth it, scraping lightly with a wide blade, fusing, and finally scribbling over it with a white oil stick. I fused the surface again very lightly to keep the white lines from running. While the wax was still soft, I pressed the images of the nude into it, burnished it, and fused it lightly. I realized at this point that my Japanese paper did not quite become transparent and disappear as I was expecting, but remained textured and visible. Fortunately, I had torn the edges, so it looks OK. I printed the two red waX seals and the little  scapular on Japanese paper, cut them out carefully, pressed and burnished them into the surface, and fused them lightly. They ended up melting too much in the background. 
   I noticed that if I held it to the light, the colors glowed like stained glass, so I started brainstorming about mounting encaustic paintings in front of a light box. I had a roll of RGR LED lights around, so I made one. Rachel still finds it too garish, but I love the stained glass like glow. The blues and reds make me think of Chartres. It is difficult to render light in photographs, and it looks better than the picture:

   Strangely, the specks of yellow and green that I don't like disappear when the paper is backlit, and the texture becomes smoother and more interesting. The transparency of the pigmented medium and its thickness are critical, and the colors would be even richer if the painting was done on frosted glass or plexiglass instead of barely translucent paper. Having worked with light for the past five years, I am obviously interested in researching this unexpected possibility further. I found two deep 11"x11" shadowboxes on sale at Michaels, and will test the proposition using a roll of string lights in them.
    Out of curiosity, I Googled "lighted encaustic paintings", and actually found very little, except for a guy named Scott Reilly who does colorful abstract encaustics on plexiglass lighted by fluorescents:

    The work is handsome, but unlike anything I would do. Some pieces are quite large though, up to 42"x 96".

Post 6: Where am I going with this(again)?

     I am not sure I totally answered the question in my rambling previous post, so I am going to do it in a practical way, by creating mockups for potential paintings and trying to explain the thought process. 
    I used wax textured backgrounds and graphics, combined, blended and layered them in Photoshop, changed colors, darkened them, and added images from my bottomless folder of "STUFF".  I like the idea of giving a second life to some of my previous work in bits and pieces of images, and playing with trompe l'oeil as I did in the first Mockup: "Trompe l'Oeil Window"

   Need I explain? Everything is a reference to current problems: the distressed wall to poverty, the envelope to illiteracy and education, the crucifix to religious fanaticism, the plumb line to the corrupt political system, the bloody handprints to inner city violence and unjustified police shootings,  the target to the gun problem , the light bulb to dirty energy, and the girl to the unequal treatment of women.
   For the next one, I wanted to go to a vertical format and very dark colors to accentuate the dark message: the way multinational corporations somehow manage to make money and sell their wares even in the middle of the worse violence and genocide taking place in the Middle East.

   The third one plays on an esoteric theme and the way people tend to come up with stuff that boggles my mind: the Khabahlah, Astrology, Catholic Amulettes, Gold Leafed Pagodas with Enormous Gold leafed Buddhas in countries where people barely survive...

   The fourth started as an attempt to incorporate some nudes I shot many years ago into a striped background heavily scribbled like inner city graffiti,  in mostly cool colors. The model holds a slate with her birth date, and there is a frontal and a side "mugshot", but it has become just an anonymous black shadow among so many other. The seals are of "Justice". The old $20 bill is a reference to the private "for profit" prisons, and the way local police departments often use "traffic violation" as a way to raise revenue. The single opium poppy pod speaks for itself. The piece obviously alludes to the serious flaws of our justice system, and the ridiculously high rate of incarceration for minor drug offenses among inner city minorities.

      The fifth is the connection to my last big sculptural Project and my last shows: "Dummies with Souls", with the blueprint of the never built "Sepultado", and the pair of arms that were modeled in wax and cast in bronze for it in 2001.

Post 5: Where am I going with this?

      Most of the work done with encaustics these days seems to be done on small panels. These small panels can be grouped very effectively, but rarely are.
   Large pieces are quite rare actually, but of course, that is where I want to go, for a host of reasons:
     1. I have never been very good at working small.
     2. Large work gets noticed. Just look in any Museum of Modern Art and major Art Galleries...
     3. A group of impressive coherent work is what gets you a show.
     4. I always found it easier to sell a $5000 painting than ten $500 paintings, or God forbid fifty $100 paintings!
     5. I don't like to fiddle with just OK stuff. I have a need to impress myself, to do better all the time. Just a few weeks ago, I thought I might be finished. This project has given me new life and new ambitions. I want to go big and put a worthy show together, here in Birmingham first, then hopefully in Atlanta and New Orleans. 
     6. I know from the past that 4ft x 6ft is the biggest size I can fit in the van. I always liked to work on several panels hung together, and have done it many times before. So I am considering the option of using a modular system made of 2ft x 2ft panels. They would be easy to ship and transport, and can be assembled with sheetrock screws in pre drilled holes. They can make 4ft x 4ft squares, 2ft x 4ft oblong horizontal or vertical possibly hung as triptychs, 4ft x  6ft horizontal or vertical (a "good" size in my experience).
    7. I have always used a mix of symbolism and mild surrealism in my paintings, with references to art history, history in general, culture, religion and philosophy, and this Series will be no different. I have been around so long it has become almost unconscious, and just happens effortlessly, just like composition. I know the rules, but don't necessarily follow them. Things quickly fall in place quite instinctively.
     8. My paintings are a reflection of my beliefs, my culture, my tastes, and my personality, and these were set a long time ago. I grew up in the sticks in post World War II France, poor but happy, in a simple world. My Dad, a teacher, worked in the evenings to make ends meet after tending his garden, we saved little scraps of soap in a bag, ate a lot of canned sardines and tuna, salted cod, beef heart and lungs, an orange was a treat, and ice cream a very rare special delicacy at my grand mother's weekly Sunday lunch. Hell, peanuts were a special treat! My dad pretended to like chicken necks, legs and butts, so we could have the breasts and legs... He still found time to be a Red Cross volunteer and fund raiser, run the POW Association, be the lead singer in the church choir, and take care of old  people. These were lifelong activities for him. He lived to be 93.
    But I had no idea we were poor, and had a wonderful childhood. We were quite self sufficient, as my Dad did everything: gardening, painting, wallpapering, carpentry, wiring, upholstery, photography, art, etc... My mom cooked, cleaned, washed by hand, ironed, knitted our sweaters, recycled them as we grew up, and darned  our socks over and over. I had one regular pair of pants, one jacket, and one Sunday suit. We had one bath a week on Saturday evening in the kitchen, in a galvanized tub with water heated on the wood stove. My baby sister went first, then me, my older sister, my mother, and my dad last in the lukewarm grimy soapy water... 
     In my whole childhood, we went on Vacation only one time, to Brittany (the French one), on the steam train, third class, because of course we never had a car. We didn't have a TV either, and never missed it. May be that's why I still watch so little TV. We sat quietly in lawn chairs on summer nights watching the stars. I still don't need a lot of entertainment, would often rather read a good book than go out, and like peace and quiet.
   I always liked to make things, look at things, figure out how they work, and knew all the craftsmen in the village, who let me watch them and play with scraps. The cabinet maker across the street gave me left over wood, and I made a lot of my toys: cars, planes, boats, swords... I even built a couple of "guitars"...! I would spend hours in the attic laying in cutout cardboard boxes pretending to fly an airplane, or driving a race car. I collected minerals, bones, skulls, leaves, stamps. I had a Chemistry kit, a modest Erector Set, a Kodak Brownie, and later a Radio Kit, which allowed me to build my very own transistor radio I kept by my bedside. I never had an electric train, but some of my better of friends did, and they let me play with them. I always hated sports and gymnastics, and was hopeless with a ball. I suppose I was a bit of a geek, but nobody ever told me!
   I assume now that seing my Dad fearlessly tackle all kinds of manual projects, including drawing and watercolor gave me the unconscious mindset that I could do anything if I wanted. I read a lot (all of Jules Vernes of course, all of Leroux, Alexandre Dumas, and more), and dreamed a lot. I loved to learn new things, and was always on top of my class. I was in awe of an older cousin that was going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and dreamed of becoming an Artist, but it was such a long shot that I never even told anybody. I was expected to get a real job, and I was particularly good at science and math, so I became an engineer. The training has often come in handy, even though I only worked four years, and hardly remember a thing they taught me.
   I suppose I have not changed that much, and in many ways am still that child, getting excited and dreaming up new projects all the time. I have notebooks full of notes, sketches and ideas that will never see the light, and a number of "Unfinished Projects". There is just not enough time to do all I would like to do. I still read for hours every night, still collect things, still love to learn new things, to make things. I particularly love old things that have a meaning, serve a purpose and had a long life, objects of the faith(all faiths), ethnic artifacts, anatomical stuff, tools, books, mementos. I am the Keeper of my Family Stuff: ID's, pictures, medals, everything...
   The computer changed my life in many ways, providing unlimited access to information and images, new ways to research, new ways to learn, and new ways to make Art. It revived my lifelong interest in Photography, and made it easier to stay active through depressive episodes. 
   I enjoy a simple life in the Dream House I built, and was lucky to find a mate who supported my endeavors and put up with me for more than forty years. She too grew up poor, in the deep South, and was raised with two brothers by her strict widowed Baptist mother, who managed to put all of them though college while working in a shirt factory.  We share the same values, and tend to like the same things and the same people.
    I consider myself a spiritual person, even though I left the Catholic Church in my teens and don't believe in God. I have studied other religions and philosophies, and found that the basic rule of life is the same everywhere: "Do unto others as you would have them do to you". That's all one needs to do to be a good person. Yet so many stray...I do not lie, and can be brutally honest. What you see is what you get.
   I wholeheartedly support the ideas of the Enlightenment: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". I do take Abraham Lincoln's definition of Democracy  to the letter: " A Government of the People, by the People, for the People", unlike the Founding Fathers, for whom the "People" only including white males owning property and paying taxes.
  

Post 4: Getting the Studio Setup

    First, I had to clear the mess on my work table!
   Having worked with wax for many years before, I already had most of the tools, and a lot of yellow beeswax, but more equipment was needed, and new supplies specific to encaustics.
    The local Art Supply had a few basics: clear wax medium, heavily pigmented oil sticks, and a flat surface thermometer to keep the temperature around 200.
    I had to order the rest.

Post 3: Time to Analyse my Likes and Dislikes

    I have so far followed the way I always approach a New Project, first finding out about everything that has been done, and selecting things I like and don't like. 
   The next step is to try to analyse the results and try to define what exactly I like in different pieces, and what I don't like.
   First the likes: 
      1. The glowing translucency of the medium.

      2. The layering of many coats of wax fused together that can be scraped back or added to, creating amazingly rich visual textures.

      3. The large number of techniques that can be combined together to create a complexity, variety and richness of textures impossible with just oils, acrylics or watercolors. I especially like to incise lines in the surface and fill them with contrasting color to add geometric figures or scribbles.

      4. Poliptychs

      5. Inclusion of objects:

      6.The possibility to fuse photographic images under layers of encaustic and alter them, which will allow me to include in the new work bits and pieces of my older work, images of my own drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs, images of my favorite objects. Everything then has gone full circle by the time time runs out. I like that idea very much...
    In fact, to prove myself I was on the right track, I spent a while in Photoshop doing a mockup of a large potential encaustic mixed media work that has the Encaustic look, but also is distinctly mine, using images of my work and my collections, and spiritually in synch with my previous Trompe l'Oeil Paintings and my love for Surrealism. The window will actually be cut out and a panel placed a few inches behind to produce a changing perspective effect as one moves sideways. The signature will be a wax seal of my own design.

    The dislikes? Well, I am not crazy about :
       1. Using entire photographs as the first layer, even though the result can be quite beautiful...

       2. Too many drips 

       3. Too many dimples or bumps, too heavy a texture

         4. Too many colors

          5. Too busy an image

            6. Work that is too obviously derivative, even very good looking and well done:

          7. "Cute" stuff, especially including hearts, butterflies, birdies and flowers

Post 2: Where am I going?

   I have used many different media over the last 40 year and done many kinds of Art, learning the techniques by myself along the way. But there is always a continuity in my work, in shapes, colors, esthetics, and subject matter. My art comes out of my environment, I am inspired by things around me in the studio, and around the house. 
   Both Rachel and I are Compulsive Collectors with a wide ranging taste, and find beauty in the strange and the exotic, the odd humble object. We don't really care about monetary value. I am particularly interested in objects with a connection to the soul and every day life around the world, religious, ethnic, traditional, spiritual. I like things that have a meaning, things that people have used, loved and worshiped, and show tear and wear.
   Pretty much everything around me has appeared at some point in a painting, a collage, a Photograph. Things around me have inspired my sculpture, and my house is filled with both the collections and a lot of my own work. I have photographed most of my things, and collected over the years tens to thousands of images of just about everything, to use in my animation and video work.  
   Whatever I do next is inevitably going to be connected to what I did before and what surrounds me. As has always been the case in the past, it is also going to have a connection to ancient civilizations, their culture,their religion, their Art, the materials  and tools they used. 
    The last "real" mixed media work I did before getting lost in the virtual world was called "Words of Wisdom", and used hand made paper, wood, embossed copper, gold leaf, bees wax, and oil paints:

   The words came out of one of my prized possessions: one of my maternal grandmother's school books from the turn of the previous century:

   It suddenly occurred to me that I could get back into painting using those very same materials, and started researching "Encaustic Painting". 
   It is one of the oldest painting media, referred to in Ancient Greek Manuscripts, and used 2000 years ago in Egypt for the Fayum Mummy Portraits :

    It was revived in the 60's by a few North American Artists, the most famous being Jasper Johns:

  The work was definitely innovative at the time, and I like it OK, but I can't honestly say I find it very exciting. Stars, stripes, targets, numbers, anybody knows what that means?Is there no other subject matter.
   A Google search for "encaustic paintings" brought up a whole lot of stuff, both images of paintings, technical information, and a bunch of How to YouTube videos. I was not aware the ancient medium had enjoyed such a renewal of popularity in the last few years. Looking at the actual encaustic paintings shown, it's a mixed bag. 
    First, it seems to me that it doesn't  work very well for realistic work, landscape, florals or portrait, unless it's highly stylized, and these pieces are small:

    That's not what I want to do.
    Second, there are some beautiful abstract works, with intricate translucent textures impossible to achieve any other way. It lends itself well to color field painting and abstraction, and I like these very much:

    However, that's not what I want to do either. Seems to me this has been done in one way or  another for 50 years now by several generations of Artists. It's beautiful, and decorative, but I can't get excited about it. You can hardly tell one artist from the other.

     Third, there is a new tendency towards including photographs, either transfers or imbedded in the wax, which is more "down my alley" so to speak. These to me have a more personal and distinct style, and elicit an emotional response I don't get from abstraction alone: