Sunday With Ezshwan #5 & #6

This interview is more personal. An important part of my story as an artist. 

https://vimeo.com/565773437

 Sunday with Ezshwan #6 Ezshwan talks about her inspiration and technique for creating the series, 50 Faces,

https://vimeo.com/568696032

Abstract; Back to Figurative

For the past 9 months, I have been working on my latest series, "The Lightness of Being" http://www.ezshwan.com/new-work.html and it has been a wonderful creative adventure. I challenged myself to explore different ways to use encaustic with mixed media. Some of these paintings will be in a 3 month show in what I think is the best, most beautiful gallery in San Miguel de Allende , July, August and September.

I may eventually go back to this style, but right now, I am having a break that is fun and keeping me smiling; painting images from old photos of my childhood, and that was a long time ago; a simple time. I have just started. I only put in a couple of hours yesterday, but I am looking forward to getting back into the studio.

I have been working as an artist for a very long time and have no intention of stopping

The new painting, "Here, There and Everywhere"

Begining paint sketches

starting with ink washes on pieces of canvas

Another oldie , a cover of a magazine from about 2002

I Am Not An Encaustic Artist

Nor am I a cold wax artist, nor a mixed media artist, etc.... I am an artist. I make paintings and use what ever techniques that will convey the message I want to share in my work. I have worked in and taught  encaustic for 20 years and have developed techniques to advance the use of wax in mixed media work.

For several years, I sculpted; wood, clay, plaster, bronze, stone and welded steel. After a divorce, I sold my oxyacetylene torches, tanks of gas, and  all my tools and grinding devises. I did go back to some sculpture and worked in hydrocal for a couple of years. Hydrocal is a white gypsum cement. I enjoyed sculpting and learned to appreciate what it takes to work in 3D.

Then I missed color and paint.

My professional career  started at a publishing company when I was fresh out of art school. I got the job because I knew how to use an airbrush. (My minor was in advertising design)

 While viewing paintings in my home gallery, someone recently said, "It doesn't look like the same artist created all these different paintings" 

After over 60 years of making art, the need to diversify is paramount in making my art. It would be stifling of my creativity to keep making versions of the same painting in the same style.

Below are examples of work in encaustic, oil, acrylic, cold wax, spanning many years and different series.

What do you think about all the different styles and techniques?

Oil with a collaged boarder.

Oil over Acrylic. One of my favorites from a series, circa 1989

Ink drawing from life

encaustic on paper

A Pub in England, live ink sketch. For 12 years I sketched and painted only jazz musicians , while traveling with my musician husband.

encasutic

Acrylic

Oil

Mixed media, My most recent work

oil

cold wax and oil over encaustic

Cold wax and oil 

A Painting From Start to Finish

This new series is evolving in its own direction. The technique is something new and different for me. I am starting with an ink drawing over milk paint on a board. I choose milk paint because it creates a porous surface that is compatible with encaustic. After I get the ink drawing to meet my satisfaction, I apply several coats of clear encaustic medium. It has been challenging because my studio is cold and the encasutic hardens fast and is difficult to get as smooth as I would like. I've tried putting the painting out in the sun to warm the surface before applying the encasutic, but as soon as I bring it back in the studio, it cools off.

I use oil glazes for color and charcoal to get the blackest blacks. Both the oil and charcoal have to be fused to the encasutic for permanence. I then go in and do some scraping with a razor blade and/or a ceramic tool. Here is the result.

Me and the Boys, 100 x 80 cm. $2,800

Jazz Paintings

For more than 12 years, I painted and sketched only jazz musicians. I traveled with my late husband to recording sessions, jazz festivals and concerts and always had my sketchbook with me, I drew with ink, working rapidly. The musicians were in action and I wanted to catch the energy. I converted many of these sketches into paintings that I exhibited at the Nice (France) jazz festival every summer. I continued to go to jazz clubs to sketch even after Kai died, but realized after a couple of years that jazz wasn't a big part of my life anymore, and moved on to other series. It is nice to look back and remember that special time.

The paintings are no longer available. All have been sold. One is in a museum permanent collection; another is in a college permanent collection.