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:
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:
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