Feeding the Chickens

I thought this painting was finished, but when my daughter, another artist walked into my studio, she said "I love it", followed by "What are all the rocks in the background?" Since I had chickens in mind when I painted the background, the shapes looked like chickens to me. At first, I thought there was nothing I could do about the "rocks" since the ink drawing was under many layers of clear encaustic, but after checking Goggle images, looking for chickens feeding, I saw that I could do some scraping and draw a bit with very soft charcoal. I added some more oil glazes and carefully fused all that into the wax surface. What do you think?

first image

cradled board, so the painting doe not need framing

last version

detail

In The Studio, Oct.3 2014

The Artist #2 process of a painting

The Artist #2, 80 cm x 100 cm, acrylic and oil on cradled board

Acrylic under painting

First layer of oil

Mexico City Adventure

For a complete change of pace, my daughter  Cynthia and I went to my favorite city ; Mexico City, for 3 days. We needed a break for our routine and certainly were inspired by the art and the food and the sophistication of the people in Colonia Roma where we stayed.

I have been getting tired of encaustic. To me, it has the flavor of cult-like devotion and many paintings that I see posted on Face Book on the encaustic sites, are from "new" artists who are in love with the  surface technique, and have no interest or ability to create a painting with a reason for being, including composition or the fundamentals of painting.

We went to 3 museums, but the one that inspired and excited us was the Museo Tamayo. The show was perfectly curated. There was also the 19th biennial show that featured young artists. I was thrilled that there were many beautiful executed, technically beautiful figurative paintings.

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Not everything was figurative

detail

packing

The packing up our homes and getting all the details settled is taking time. Moving is always a big job.

To take the tedium out the packing I hold the vision of my new studio in my mind - as well as all the open spaces for living and art our new home.

Here is a shot of what will be the studio.

lots of light and air. There is a full bath attached.

More process images

I am making oil portrait sketches trying to get very loose. I have a tendency to get too concentrated on the details and lose spontaneity. Since I am between series and have a couple of hours a week with a beautiful model, I will continue to work on this exercise until I can get the results I want.

I find photographing the process tells me a lot. When I look at the photos, I can see what needs fixing and usually, I have taken the work too far. Too much smoothing and working to get a likeness.

This model has such gorgeous eyes that in this exercise, I decided to block them out. I love painting eyes - who doesn't? but I find they can become the focus of the painting.

I am going to stop on this one today and look at it again tomorrow. I don't like it. I will start another one.

new beginnings

I picked up 4 beautiful cradled board from my carpenter. He does such a wonderful job, that it almost seems disrespectful to paint on the smooth wood surface.

Well, I got the milk paint base on them and as soon as they were dry enough, I started a few more paintings for my series, "Into the Silence"

larger, encasutic, mixed media painting

detail

oil, encaustic, powered pigments, milk paint.

another day of portrait painting

I am starting to remember why I moved from oil to encaustic. It was because I was getting too picky with my figurative oils. I see that I am doing it again. Hopefully one more day of work on this portrait and I can get back to creating work that is more imaginative and free.

Tomorrow I finish the arms, dress and hands and add a daisy.

Painting in oil?

I have been working for weeks on the preparation and posting of my online classes. Filming the videos was nothing compared to the challenges I have had to get them accessable for downloading. Each video took about 2 hours to upload to Vimeo, and there are 11 classes. So, while waiting for that to process, I started an oil painting of a child that is a commission. The parents, at first, wanted the portrait in encasutic, but I felt that is needed to be much softer and convinced them that oil would be better. It is interesting to pick up oil paint, after so many years of just using encaustic. I haven't done a portrait of a child in at least 19 years.

2 days of work so far- with lots of interruptions

New Link for Painting Portraits in Encasutic

The previously posted link for my latest book, Painting Portraits in Encaustic has been changed. I am sorry if any of you have tried to order it and not been able to. It is 7" x 7" and easy to manage in your studio. There are 88 pages showing 2 different approaches to encaustic portrait techniques. I showed it to a artist friend of mine - a constructionist, and she said, " Even I could paint a portrait following this." That was very good to hear.

Please let me know what you think about the book.



Here is the new link:http://www.blurb.com/b/4375616-painting-portraits-in-encasutic.

Painting portraits in encaustic

beginning loose charcoal drawing on oil primed, milk paint board

Finished piece.

 I am photographing each step I make while painting a portrait in encaustic. This is for my planned book, "Painting Portraits in Encaustic" I will be including the palette, tools and fusing methods that I use. I do not want my figurative work to look like an oil painting. I love the texture and luminosity of encaustic and I want those qualities to speak in the portraits.

Second encaustic book published.

 The second book of my encaustic paintings is finished and ready to review. This one is figurative.
I look forward to getting my hard cover copies. I hope the colors are accurate.
http://www.blurb.com/books/3583189
Please click on the link above and check it out and let me know what you think.

O.K. Now I really am finished - I think??

Not knowing when to leave a painting alone, I made some "adjustments" on this one. NO more! I will forget how much work and encaustic went into this in several weeks. Time to go back to abstracts.

These are just the flesh tone paint.

                                                                                              

Inbetween time

This is one of the paintings that recently sold in Pozos. Nick came here today and paid me for it, the one below and some others.

My last two large paintings are finished and I am preparing boards for some new work. I've posted these before...I'm thinking of doing one more figurative from the old family photos and then going back to abstract.

Salsa, 10" x 10"

I sent five small paintings to Galeria 6 in Pozos. This is one of them and I just realized that I don't have photos of the others. That is rare for me because I "always" photograph everything before it leaves my studio - well, maybe not always.