House No. 192: Carved Encaustic House

House No. 192: Carved Encaustic House

encaustic on carved wood

3.5 in. x 4 in. x .5 in.

192/365; 07/11/11

Today's house is another encaustic piece, this time on carved wood, which was a collaboration with the Werepanda and his Dremel tool.

I drew the house with a thatched roof even though my friend Beth has me completely terrified of thatched roofing because she told me snakes like to live in them.

After I drew the house, Phil carved it for me. Then I started the process of gradually heating the wood in the oven and adding the wax in layers.

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

 

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

collage and encaustic on chipboard

18 in. x 12 in.
124/365; 05/04/11

Those of you who know me in life outside of the innerwebs know that I am super Safety First Girl. Somehow, I threw that caution and conscientiousness to the wind whilst working on today's house.

I was not exactly thinking about what I was getting hot, and I had glue and packing tape on this piece that probably should not have been heated and inhaled. 

That customer card is from the late Minerva Books in Petersburg that closed down a couple years ago. I loved that bookstore. Sigh.

I just love the way the wax pooled and beaded-up on surfaces, especially the metallic paper that is most likely toxic when heated but oh, so pretty.

Below, you can see the packing tape that shriveled up from the heat. I ended up getting a headache and feeling light headed and nauseous. I'm not sure how much of that was from toxic fumes and how much is from working over a hot pizza stone and oven

House No. 123: Rooftops

House No. 123: Rooftops

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
123/365; 05/03/11

I started to get more controlling about the encaustics, which is sort of funny considering that I was excited about them loosening up my hand. I wanted to push them though, so I started to crudely control the temperature with two pizza stones (one was heating in the oven while I worked on the other) and two cookie sheets cooled in the freezer.

By controlling the heating and cooling, I was able to solidify goops of wax where I wanted them (sort of) and cool the surface enough to get thick, chunky lines. See the black accents in these details for examples of that line work.

I re-melted portions, wiped them smooth with paper toweling, scratched into the wax with chopsticks and pieces of cardboard, spread the wax around and cooled it into dimensional surfaces, and melted colors together.

Above, you can see where I wiped off a lot of color and pooled it on top in the yellow and grey areas. Then I worked into the cooler wax with the black crayon to get harder edges with more contrast.

Different shades of brown and red made up these tile roof, above. I wiped the areas clear to layer the color and then cooled chunks of molten wax to create dimension and texture.

I used a lot of white in the above portion to make the windows look reflective and to create highlights. Different color tones and hues and layers of wax create shading and dimension, as seen in detail below.

Stylistic inspiration for today's house came largely from Egon Schiele. (A warning about following that Schiele link: a lot of his works are Not Safe for Work.)

House No. 122: Encaustic Panel House

House No. 122: Encaustic Panel House

encaustic on wood

6 in. x 6 in. x .25 in.
122/365; 05/02/11

For this house, I put the wood right in the oven and let the panel itself get hot before working the wax into it. I would not recommend this. It smelled, burnt a little, and kind of gave me a headache. Still, it looked cool and had a lovely glossy surface.

The wax was absorbed into the wood and smoked a bit, and the colors became very rich and concentrated. The colors also blended well, as you can see in the multiple greens used in the grass and where the door melds into the house color to create the front stoop.

I liked working into the negative space, such as the panes of the windows, as the wood started to cool. I gradually added lighter and lighter blues into the sky to build up the negative space and make it as interesting as the house itself. I love the way the layers create a rich surface.

House No. 121: Spring Cottage

House No. 121: Spring Cottage

encaustic and ink on cotton rag paper with flower petals

6 in. x 4 in.
121/365; 05/01/11

As Thomas Morley wrote, and I dare say put it best,  Now is the Month of Maying. In honor of May Day, I created today's house out of a piece of handmade flowered paper that had been an invitation lining that I had been holding onto for some time.

The oils from the wax caused the ink to spread, and I really like the soft lines that it created. Also, the absorbent paper changed the feel and look of the encaustic. It made it possible to layer the wax more and caused it to spread less.

The wax was less creamy and malleable on this paper, but it gave me the opportunity to build up on the paper and treat the wax more like paint.

The petals were in danger of charring a bit, and I had to work fast and continuously pull the paper off the heat. The ink seemed to react to the heat, and the paper smoked just on the spots where the ink was, creating smoky, brownish-grey areas.

House No. 120: Alsatian Bourg

 

House No. 120: Alsatian Bourg

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
120/365; 04/30/11

No matter how old I get, I will never lose my excitement over metallic crayons. They are awesome. And just look how great they look when they melt:

Check out the sparkles floating in the wax. Love, love, love that!

Check out the lint and dog fur also floating in the wax. Well, it adds texture, at least.

Colors with white in them make really lovely, subtle layering. (See the pink areas above.) That is my favorite part of this process, the layering and translucent obfuscation.

House No. 119: Traditional Japanese Gassho-Zukuri House

 

House No. 119: Traditional Japanese Gassho-Zukuri House

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
119/365; 04/29/11

Day two of encaustics. I started with the cookie sheet, but I moved up to a foil-covered pizza stone because it holds the heat longer and it is so hot that I can get the wax to really pool. Check it out in these close-up detail shots:

The trees were my favorite part to create, and I love the waxy surface they created. I worked into those parts of the image for a long time, wiping and reapplying and scraping.

I think those two details work as little abstract compositions in their own right, don't you? Here are some more details so you can see the wax application:

I also used carry-out chopsticks to scrape and spread the wax, which seems sort of appropritate, considering the Asian architecture.

I really like the earthy tones in this one. And I love the way the traditional architecture works with its environment, so I tried to capture that in the image. 

House No. 118: Dutch Row Houses

 

House No. 118: Dutch Row Houses

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
118/365; 04/28/11

This semester I made my 2D design students try their hand at (cheap and easy) encaustics using crayons and irons and candles and blow driers and cookie sheets pulled from the oven. I got some great work from them, and I really dug how much it freed up their style. I thought that I should revisit encaustics myself, cheap and easy style.

It did free up my hand, and the colors are so lovely and bright, which is why I went with the Amsterdam row houses again. I love their fun colors and shapes.

I used a cookie sheet covered with foil and heated in a moderate oven and a tub of Crayola crayons. As I stress to my students, crayons are one thing you cannot cheap-out on. The pigment and texture of generic crayons just suck.

Try this at home: put your paper on a hot cookie sheet and draw with unwrapped crayons. I use a few pencil lines to guide my pigments.