I thought I might well mess up this one up the first time, so I just used a piece or masonite covered with white paper, which I stained yellow by rubbing pigment on. I should have started with yellow paper. I put on a clear coat of medium, and then stippled about three irregular coats of medium tinted in different shades of ochre, which I fused and scraped. I was surprised at just how much wax I used.
I melted more medium to mix a big batch of black, and made the mistake of putting the hot crockpot liner down on top of the panel, which melted the wax and created a donut shaped hole... So I just filled it up with red and yellow ochre medium, scraped off the excess, and stained the middle red with oils. I also rubbed on some white, red and marron oil paint from tubes and wiped most of it off. After fusing, it actually looked pretty go, so I stopped to think and took some pictures :
The layering, rubbing, scraping, fusing, and buffing actually creates really interesting fine textures and brilliant colors:
I considered keeping the panel and starting over, but finally decided to go on with it, and put down irregular swatches of a dark maroon in the middle and ochre around the edges, which I fused. Over that went a thin even layer of yellow ochre, and finally a layer of black medium, leaving some pits showing the yellow.
I was very careful scraping back the black, and very slowly removed very thin slices of wax, constantly turning the board around to change the scraping angle, and trying my best not to cut any grooves. I found that covering the blade with a thin layer of mineral oil will keep the scraper clean and
avoid the shavings getting stuck on the surface.
Once the panel was smooth, I kept on shaving the black wax thinner and thinner until it became translucent, and some of the ochre and maroon grounds below showed in places, especially around the edges. I tried to leave the surface as smooth as possible and polished the panel with paper towels:
I think fusing and scraping again is an option, and might yield interesting results, but what I have is pretty nice, and I am ready to cut grooves into the surface, both straight and curved. There will be no correction possible, so I think I am going to do a mockup in Photoshop to get an idea of what it might look like before I start...
It will be hard to do without French Curves templates. I suppose I could cut my own, but I already have some on order. I will try to manage with the compass. For the straight grooves, I tried the narrow Lino Cutting Gouge, but it raised a substantial burr, and I switched to a very small scraping loop which I squeezed with pliers to make it even narrower.
I worked on the grid first with a ruler and that tool. It turned out my layer of black wax was way too thick, and the grooves had to be very deep to reach the yellow layer. I had to cut through the wax many times, and the grooves ended up too wide, with quite a burr. I cut the helical groove by hand with the Lino Cutter, and as expected, it didn't turn out very smooth. I will definitely use French Curves Guides next time.
I ended up with this, which was way too messy looking, with the grooves too deep, too wide, and a rough helical curve:
I had no choice but try and fill the grooves with medium in shades of ochre.
Before I started, I use a wheel to score dotted lines.
The whole panel ended up covered in yellow medium, and it took a lot of careful scraping to get it down to a thin covering of transparent yellow medium over the black wax. I am almost there, I can see the black burr lines :
I rubbed some mineral oil on the panel so the high, lows and hazy areas would show better, and carefully shaved the rest of the yellow wax layer off, revealing the pure black background.
The final result is a long way from what I had in mind, and I don't really like it very much: too much yellow, not enough black, too bold, too garish, lines way too wide, uneven helical curve, etc... But I learned a lot doing it:
1. There is no need to waste expensive medium building thick layers. A thin layer of ochres topped with a thin black layer would have worked better, and allowed much narrower grooves. In order to lay down a thinner layer, the panel has to be heated, and the wax on the brush kept hot and liquid using the heat gun with the left hand. Wider brushes make things easier, and with the 6" Hake Brush, it only takes two strokes to cover a 12" panel:
2. The colors are too bright, I need to mix more subdued tones.
3. The helical lines cut by hand are not smooth. I need to use French Curvest to draw the curved lines. I now have a small 12" set, but I need a set of 24", and for large paintings, I will need to make my own out of masonite.
4. The yellow areas are bigger in relation to the the black background than they were before I added the lines because of the extra scraping. I need to keep that in mind next time.
5. The intersection of 3 lines may be messy, so I need to plan better and avoid them.
6. I like the dotted lines done with the 4mm wheel a lot, so to vary the lines, so I ordered a set of three smaller Excel Blades pounce wheels:
I melted more medium to mix a big batch of black, and made the mistake of putting the hot crockpot liner down on top of the panel, which melted the wax and created a donut shaped hole... So I just filled it up with red and yellow ochre medium, scraped off the excess, and stained the middle red with oils. I also rubbed on some white, red and marron oil paint from tubes and wiped most of it off. After fusing, it actually looked pretty go, so I stopped to think and took some pictures :
The layering, rubbing, scraping, fusing, and buffing actually creates really interesting fine textures and brilliant colors:
I considered keeping the panel and starting over, but finally decided to go on with it, and put down irregular swatches of a dark maroon in the middle and ochre around the edges, which I fused. Over that went a thin even layer of yellow ochre, and finally a layer of black medium, leaving some pits showing the yellow.
I was very careful scraping back the black, and very slowly removed very thin slices of wax, constantly turning the board around to change the scraping angle, and trying my best not to cut any grooves. I found that covering the blade with a thin layer of mineral oil will keep the scraper clean and
avoid the shavings getting stuck on the surface.
Once the panel was smooth, I kept on shaving the black wax thinner and thinner until it became translucent, and some of the ochre and maroon grounds below showed in places, especially around the edges. I tried to leave the surface as smooth as possible and polished the panel with paper towels:
I think fusing and scraping again is an option, and might yield interesting results, but what I have is pretty nice, and I am ready to cut grooves into the surface, both straight and curved. There will be no correction possible, so I think I am going to do a mockup in Photoshop to get an idea of what it might look like before I start...
It will be hard to do without French Curves templates. I suppose I could cut my own, but I already have some on order. I will try to manage with the compass. For the straight grooves, I tried the narrow Lino Cutting Gouge, but it raised a substantial burr, and I switched to a very small scraping loop which I squeezed with pliers to make it even narrower.
I worked on the grid first with a ruler and that tool. It turned out my layer of black wax was way too thick, and the grooves had to be very deep to reach the yellow layer. I had to cut through the wax many times, and the grooves ended up too wide, with quite a burr. I cut the helical groove by hand with the Lino Cutter, and as expected, it didn't turn out very smooth. I will definitely use French Curves Guides next time.
I ended up with this, which was way too messy looking, with the grooves too deep, too wide, and a rough helical curve:
I had no choice but try and fill the grooves with medium in shades of ochre.
Before I started, I use a wheel to score dotted lines.
The whole panel ended up covered in yellow medium, and it took a lot of careful scraping to get it down to a thin covering of transparent yellow medium over the black wax. I am almost there, I can see the black burr lines :
I rubbed some mineral oil on the panel so the high, lows and hazy areas would show better, and carefully shaved the rest of the yellow wax layer off, revealing the pure black background.
The final result is a long way from what I had in mind, and I don't really like it very much: too much yellow, not enough black, too bold, too garish, lines way too wide, uneven helical curve, etc... But I learned a lot doing it:
1. There is no need to waste expensive medium building thick layers. A thin layer of ochres topped with a thin black layer would have worked better, and allowed much narrower grooves. In order to lay down a thinner layer, the panel has to be heated, and the wax on the brush kept hot and liquid using the heat gun with the left hand. Wider brushes make things easier, and with the 6" Hake Brush, it only takes two strokes to cover a 12" panel:
2. The colors are too bright, I need to mix more subdued tones.
3. The helical lines cut by hand are not smooth. I need to use French Curvest to draw the curved lines. I now have a small 12" set, but I need a set of 24", and for large paintings, I will need to make my own out of masonite.
4. The yellow areas are bigger in relation to the the black background than they were before I added the lines because of the extra scraping. I need to keep that in mind next time.
5. The intersection of 3 lines may be messy, so I need to plan better and avoid them.
6. I like the dotted lines done with the 4mm wheel a lot, so to vary the lines, so I ordered a set of three smaller Excel Blades pounce wheels:
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