Rabbits in the Grass

Newest Painting - Oil on gessoed board.

In Progress!!

Getting there!




.... i just have to say, the fact that the color and texture of this painting matches the color and texture of the blog wallpaper makes me very very happy.

Underpainting - Cameron and the Bees

I had a fantastic photo shoot with two incredible models this weekend and have been itching to start painting since then! This is the very beginning of what will be a big series in the show, though I feel like I have enough photos and inspiration to fill 10 shows. Narrowing them down has been quite a task, but I think this is a great place to start. I can't wait begin layering in the oils. :)

Encaustic Experiments

So the time came to put the wax on the small crayfish painting I did earlier.  I am actually a little hesitant to post this, because I am not really that happy with this one and not very comfortable with broadcasting my mistakes. But c'est la vie! You live, you learn, and you blog about it.

As I mentioned before, this is an ancient technique called Encaustic. Around the time of the Roman Empire, the Egyptians used encaustic to create amazing likenesses of the deceased. These were placed on top of the wrapped heads of mummies and are amazingly realistic. Click here for an example.

I am using encaustic a bit differently than the Egyptians did. Instead of making workable "paint" by mixing pigment into the wax like they did, I am using the wax almost like a transparent surface to draw over top of an existing painting. I've outlined my process below. Feel free to give it a try!

Click to see larger

Yellow beeswax melting on the George Forman (with the griddle style attachment) - Brilliant idea I saw on YouTube

Brushing on the beeswax. This is when I got carried away and put way too much wax over the crayfish painting. Next time I'll be more conservative with it!

Next I etched into the wax while it was still soft

Covering the wax with thinned down oil paint. I actually went back and used a more brown color as you can see in the final result.  When you wipe off this coating of paint, it only sticks in the etched parts that I scratched out in the previous step.

Final result... I think? Might go back and do more later. Or collage into it? I dunno.

As I said, I'm not completely satisfied with this one. Its like the first pancake off the frying pan - you can always count on it's imperfection. If I do this crayfish again (which I might), I think I'll paint more of an "pond bottom" environment for the crayfish to inhabit, and will brush much less wax over the star of the piece. Practice makes perfect, right? Expect to see a lot more (and hopefully better!) encaustics in the future!

Emily in Progress

Been working on this painting of Emily for the past two days. Almost done!

In Progress...

Almost finished. At this point, I want to let it dry for a while before I add the final touches.

Messy Pallet!

What a bummer - it's so pretty!

On a side note, I'm thoroughly disappointed at these new "Van Gogh" brand oil paints I bought to try. They were a lot cheaper than my customary Wisor Newtons, and like a fool, I fell for them. They simply do not have the heft and pigment level to complete with my thicker Newtons, and get completely lost when I use them together. Its a shame, since I do love that orange.

I have to say that the prussian blue is actually ok, but maybe only because those blues are usually dominating anyway.






Check back in a bit to see the painting totally finished!

Emily

Today I'm working on a small oil painting. I did the under-drawing a few months ago and it got put on the back burner. I'm happy to get back to it! The image is of a friend (herself an incredible illustrator and designer) who graciously agreed to let me paint her portrait.

Since many of the colors in my reference photo are in the cooler spectrum, I gave the drawing a wash of a warmer color - acrylic yellow ochre paint. As a result, my cool colors on the warm base will be much stronger than if I started on white. I used acrylic, which is a plastic based paint, because it dries very fast and oil works well on top of it. You can always paint with oil over acrylic, but not the other way around!

I will probably begin on her face, mostly because I think that's the most interesting part. I'll keep you posted on progress, so be sure to check back!