Rewind: Fun with fire, or delving into encaustics!

NOTE: I am vacationing this week in a warmer climate! so thought this a good time to "re-run" some of my earlier blog posts. 

It is inevitable. I can’t go more than a year or two without adding another technique to my arsenal of processes!! Discovering the new possibilities is exhilarating for me, and fuels a whole new chapter of work.  

 Recently I want to open studio night at the fabulous Starline factory open studios, http://www.starlinefactory.com/ and fell in love with Carol Hamilton’s encaustic work. http://carolhamiltonarts.com .  I brought a piece home, and signed up for a workshop! I had worked with beeswax in the early 90s as a covering for the natural porous materials I was using, and loved the creamy, dreamy matte surface.  However- I remember sitting at an art fair on a 95 degree day and watching the wax start to melt.  I’m sure I did not add enough dammar varnish (or any at all?)  I can’t recall, so anyhow wrote it off as too fragile a medium to endure sitting in an aluminum trailer in Chicago’s hot or freezing weather.  Now, 20 or more years later, I am no longer sitting at art fairs every weeknd, so thought it was time to revisit this again.  

Hers a pictorial trek thru my latest dive into encaustics:

Workshop-

Carol gave us the basics, and then we to to play.  Was also good to look at her range of work (love the 3D aspect- still to be pursued) and seeing how she set up her studio to accommodate the heat and fumes encaustics make. (Great- another toxin. :(  )

I just LOVE how fire moves the wax paints around, creating fluid organic shapes and patterns. It reminded me of pouring ink-but you use fire instead of water to push things around. AND –big bonus- you don’t have to babysit them and monitor them for hours as they dry and change.  These set up pretty quickly- perfect for a manic impatient artist! I was hooked.   So the last couple weeks have been spent scouring resale shops for heating elements, begging for art supply coupons form friends, and setting up an encaustic set up in the studio.  It is growing… 

Then the best part- experimenting when it’s all fresh and new. Just like at the beginning of a brand new relationship when everything is exciting and new… remember that?  So I am relishing that! 

So here’s what I’ve tried:

Shellac:

LOVE this! Paint it on, place it in my beverage metal bucket, and set it on fire!! The resulting amber patterns that occur are so lovely I want to put everything in the bucket and set it on fire. Don't visit me right now.

What i set on fire today....

Incising: 

So I love drawing back into my work- bit with acrylic, you had a small window to do that before things go too….plasticy.  Here- I can use a needle tool to stipple, scribble and write into the piece until the very end.  Then stain it- (LOVE staining too) to get an almost etching like mark. 

Collage- 

Can embed papers, leaves, rocks, pods and…..??

Pan pastels: 

So while impatiently waiting for the beeswax to melt, I pulled out the pan pastels and tried them on the luan. FUN! Erased back in…. then read later that they could also be applied to the surface of wax!! Finding more ways of folding this into what I already do…

Transfer- 

SO darn easy to transfer images!!  Been looking for this my whole life. Don’t have to make a screen, or endlessly coat papers – just make a toner copy and burnish on to warm surface. Scrub off back and – damn! Right there.  Bonus- if you torch it- it will break up and move about (at least I think that's a bonus.) 

Ok- I confess I DO have some pyro tendencies, apparently… 

So- to be continued. Right now- I am working small and experimenting. I’m sure working larger will bring it’s own challenges, but for now, I am vey happy with making small “tests”.  I dream about it, wake up thinking “I’ve got to try incising with a linoleum cutter next…”  or something like that…

Here are some of my test babies:  

    

  

See more at www.Cherylholz.com, or https://www.facebook.com/HolzFineArt

BONUS- 

1. I don’t have to clean brushes!! 

2. No waste- turn off the skillet, and everything is there waiting for you tomorrow without having to cover it up. 

3. Transfer process is a dream! 

4. Collage and mixed media capabilities are endless!

DOWNSIDES: 

1. Beeswax taxes my patience waiting for it to melt-or I need better equipment. 

2. Toxins- need to look into some better ventilation. 

3. Fire risk- the fire dept. every year has told me to move my fire extinguisher out of the back room.  It is now very close to where I work! 

4. Cost- pricey to start, at least…

Irish ATCs

( These were scheduled to be posted while we were in Scotland and Ireland- but Blogger had different ideas. So- a little late but the art remains the same)

As you are reading this- I am now in Ireland!!  It is a big part of my heritage, but I noticed that the closer the trip got, the more my choices became Celtic ones.  I am going to show you what that looks like here! 

Ogham ATCs

I first became acquainted with Ogham characters during my first trip to Ireland almost 2 decades ago. While seeing the Book of Kells exhibition at Trinity College, these intriguing writings just grabbed me for some reason I can't completely articulate. I bought a postcard to remind me of the marks, (no photos allowed!) then found many other examples on various rocks and ruins during the rest of the trip. I came back and did a little research, and although I am not a linguist, this is my best explanation: It is an ancient alphabet whose characters are based on 12 trees. Found throughout  Ireland, archaeologists now think it might have been more widespread than that- because they've unearthed examples in north and south America that also contain examples of it.  At any rate- the following pieces have excerpts from the Book of Ballymote, in which the priests during the dark ages tried to record what knowledge and history they could preserve.  For some reason, in my mind's eye, a line of Ogham finished these perfectly! 

Irish music

And then, of course, there is Irish music.  After having just seen U2 in concert a month ago, I am still reliving that concert via their songs while working at the studio!  So this piece once again started with alcohol inks on encaustic board- a lovely surface for encaustic. 

I added some contrasting pan pastel blue, then wrote in the U2 lyrics that were playing while I worked- a favorite song of mine-  "Walk On"

  (All that you can’t leave behind is not just referring to actual luggage :) I collaged on a little strip from an old fossil book, and then waxed it. I then took a photocopy of some grasses, “auditioned” them on top of the piece, liked how it looked and what it added, so made a silkscreen of it. 

Screened it on, added another layer of wax, and stopped before I went to far!!  

Here is Walk on -performed live at Slane Castle in Ireland. Imagine! 

Slainte!

Fun with Fire! Delving into Encaustics...

It is inevitable. I can’t go more than a year or two without adding another technique to my arsenal of processes!! Discovering the new possibilities is exhilarating for me, and fuels a whole new chapter of work. 

 Recently I want to open studio night at the fabulous Starline factory open studios, http://www.starlinefactory.com/ and fell in love with Carol Hamilton’s encaustic work. http://carolhamiltonarts.com .  I brought a piece home, and signed up for a workshop! I had worked with beeswax in the early 90s as a covering for the natural porous materials I was using, and loved the creamy, dreamy matte surface.  However- I remember sitting at an art fair on a 95 degree day and watching the wax start to melt.  I’m sure I did not add enough dammar varnish (or any at all?)  I can’t recall, so anyhow wrote it off as too fragile a medium to endure sitting in an aluminum trailer in Chicago’s hot or freezing weather.  Now, 20 or more years later, I am no longer sitting at art fairs every weeknd, so thought it was time to revisit this again. 

Hers a pictorial trek thru my latest dive into encaustics:

Workshop-

Carol gave us the basics, and then we to to play.  Was also good to look at her range of work (love the 3D aspect- still to be pursued) and seeing how she set up her studio to accommodate the heat and fumes encaustics make. (Great- another toxin. :(  )

I just LOVE how fire moves the wax paints around, creating fluid organic shapes and patterns. It reminded me of pouring ink-but you use fire instead of water to push things around. AND –big bonus- you don’t have to babysit them and monitor them for hours as they dry and change.  These set up pretty quickly- perfect for a manic impatient artist! I was hooked.   So the last couple weeks have been spent scouring resale shops for heating elements, begging for art supply coupons form friends, and setting up an encaustic set up in the studio.  It is growing…

Then the best part- experimenting when it’s all fresh and new. Just like at the beginning of a brand new relationship when everything is exciting and new… remember that?  So I am relishing that!

So here’s what I’ve tried:

Shellac:

LOVE this! Paint it on, place it in my beverage metal bucket, and set it on fire!! The resulting amber patterns that occur are so lovely I want to put everything in the bucket and set it on fire. Don't visit me right now.

What i set on fire today....

Incising:

So I love drawing back into my work- bit with acrylic, you had a small window to do that before things go too….plasticy.  Here- I can use a needle tool to stipple, scribble and write into the piece until the very end.  Then stain it- (LOVE staining too) to get an almost etching like mark.

Collage-

Can embed papers, leaves, rocks, pods and…..??

Pan pastels: 

So while impatiently waiting for the beeswax to melt, I pulled out the pan pastels and tried them on the luan. FUN! Erased back in…. then read later that they could also be applied to the surface of wax!! Finding more ways of folding this into what I already do…

Transfer-

SO darn easy to transfer images!!  Been looking for this my whole life. Don’t have to make a screen, or endlessly coat papers – just make a toner copy and burnish on to warm surface. Scrub off back and – damn! Right there.  Bonus- if you torch it- it will break up and move about (at least I think that's a bonus.)

Ok- I confess I DO have some pyro tendencies, apparently…

So- to be continued. Right now- I am working small and experimenting. I’m sure working larger will bring it’s own challenges, but for now, I am vey happy with making small “tests”.  I dream about it, wake up thinking “I’ve got to try incising with a linoleum cutter next…”  or something like that…

Here are some of my test babies: 

    

  

See more at www.Cherylholz.com, or https://www.facebook.com/HolzFineArt

BONUS- 

1. I don’t have to clean brushes!!

2. No waste- turn off the skillet, and everything is there waiting for you tomorrow without having to cover it up.

3. Transfer process is a dream!

4. Collage and mixed media capabilities are endless!

DOWNSIDES:

1. Beeswax taxes my patience waiting for it to melt-or I need better equipment.

2. Toxins- need to look into some better ventilation.

3. Fire risk- the fire dept. every year has told me to move my fire extinguisher out of the back room.  It is now very close to where I work!

4. Cost- pricey to start, at least…