Thursday, January 23, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Encaustic adventure…..
Encaustic - meaning "to burn into"- is an art form I thought I would leave on the 'back burner,' so to speak for a good while yet. However, an adventurous artist from our Big Sky Artists' group, who is also a fantastic teacher, agreed to give us a class and these are my results.
Encaustic applications date back to ancient Greece when it was used to highlight statues. Egyptians used it to decorate vases and tombs and later, it was used for icon paintings. This is an art form which uses hot waxes and paints and at times must have been rather dangerous and toxic. It became less popular once oil paints made the application of colour much easier. Now, with the development of new products, coloured beeswaxes, special irons and heat resistant papers and materials, this art form is becoming more common.
Some artists use a thicker form of the wax on canvas and use it in conjunction with acrylics/oils. In the class, we simply used a special type of 'waxy' paper, specially made coloured wax blocks, and small hot irons. A stylizing tool was also available but I didn't get to it.
I was intrigued by the variety of marks one can make simply with the iron! Anyway, here are my results with a few 'close ups' as well.
This is supposed to be a fantasy landscape… It is the largest one at 8" x 12"
Here I was thinking of canola fields.
6" x8"
Below, in the enlargement of part of this picture, you can see some drops of wax. If one was to pour the wax it would be much thicker - but that would also entail a whole other work place.
The ones below are 4" x 6" and were the result of trying out the 'technique' of using the iron.
 |
| lower part of picture below |
Encaustic applications date back to ancient Greece when it was used to highlight statues. Egyptians used it to decorate vases and tombs and later, it was used for icon paintings. This is an art form which uses hot waxes and paints and at times must have been rather dangerous and toxic. It became less popular once oil paints made the application of colour much easier. Now, with the development of new products, coloured beeswaxes, special irons and heat resistant papers and materials, this art form is becoming more common.
Some artists use a thicker form of the wax on canvas and use it in conjunction with acrylics/oils. In the class, we simply used a special type of 'waxy' paper, specially made coloured wax blocks, and small hot irons. A stylizing tool was also available but I didn't get to it.
I was intrigued by the variety of marks one can make simply with the iron! Anyway, here are my results with a few 'close ups' as well.
6" x8"
Below, in the enlargement of part of this picture, you can see some drops of wax. If one was to pour the wax it would be much thicker - but that would also entail a whole other work place.
The ones below are 4" x 6" and were the result of trying out the 'technique' of using the iron.
on this one you can see the shape of the iron quite clearly
This is an enlargement of the bottom left corner of the picture above.
There are fascinating pictures within pictures.
Friday, January 3, 2014
the Cottage Garden
In this world of white, grey, and blue - when the clouds move aside to let us see the open sky, green is virtually nowhere to be found. Our evergreens, where they are not covered in snow, seem almost black.
Strangely, in the stillness and bleakness of winter we still have visions of the garden. We dream of the first green shoot to push aside the last snow crystals, we delight in planning new garden spaces, search for places to purchase new and unusual perennials, or look for a seed source for that heirloom carrot we long to taste.
Having had an English grandmother, who loved to spend time in her garden, and who took the time one spring to help me seed and then tend and harvest about 15 different herbs, I have always had an interest in the "Cottage Garden." While one might think that such gardens have been around 'forever', according to Anne Scott-James in, The Cottage Garden, while the English cottage garden has achieved the status of a legend it is not nearly as old as we like to think. In fact it is difficult to find even the 'flimsiest record of a good cottage garden' before the second half of the eighteenth century.
Interestingly, artists did a lot to encourage people to see small places as beautiful places. From about the 1860's water-colour painters viewed the cottage garden as a "background to family happiness. In dappled sunshine, slender young mothers hang up their snow-white washing; pretty little girls in pinafores and sun-bonnets tend geese on the green; small boys go fishing with worms and a pin; there are halcyon hours of birds' - nesting and bluebell - picking; in the gardens, fruit-trees blossom and sunflowers peep over the hedge. Every picture tells a happy story, and the cottage garden has become an idyll."
In these days and in this place, where greenery is virtually non-existent outside for 6 - 8 months of the year, we bring the garden inside by taking myriads of photographs. Somehow, I feel like each summer I should be outside with my paints and easel painting the garden… more often I find my camera in hand rather than a paint brush. I have found that it is during the winter that I actually spend time painting garden plants and flowers.
As I stood by the window looking at a backyard filled with snow, a path running diagonally across it to the compost, and chickadees seeking out their particular seed from the bird dish on the gazebo deck, I loved the whiteness, the grey, and the splash of blue as the sun began to push the clouds away. I realize that I need both - the warmth and comfort of the garden and the stark white clarity of the snow. This is reflected in our house renovations as well. While the main level is a place of warmth and colour, the upstairs level is fast becoming white, cool blues and greens, with a bit of colour… In a strange way the contrasting palettes complement each other. An interesting topic of its own to pursued another day!
This fall has resulted in two 'garden' paintings: Rhubarb #3 and Hosta Garden - this latter is based on a photo from my sister's wonderful Cottage Garden where hostas reign supreme in a large area. The rhubarb paintings are shown in my last blog.
Here is the just completed, Hosta Garden.
Strangely, in the stillness and bleakness of winter we still have visions of the garden. We dream of the first green shoot to push aside the last snow crystals, we delight in planning new garden spaces, search for places to purchase new and unusual perennials, or look for a seed source for that heirloom carrot we long to taste.
Having had an English grandmother, who loved to spend time in her garden, and who took the time one spring to help me seed and then tend and harvest about 15 different herbs, I have always had an interest in the "Cottage Garden." While one might think that such gardens have been around 'forever', according to Anne Scott-James in, The Cottage Garden, while the English cottage garden has achieved the status of a legend it is not nearly as old as we like to think. In fact it is difficult to find even the 'flimsiest record of a good cottage garden' before the second half of the eighteenth century.
Interestingly, artists did a lot to encourage people to see small places as beautiful places. From about the 1860's water-colour painters viewed the cottage garden as a "background to family happiness. In dappled sunshine, slender young mothers hang up their snow-white washing; pretty little girls in pinafores and sun-bonnets tend geese on the green; small boys go fishing with worms and a pin; there are halcyon hours of birds' - nesting and bluebell - picking; in the gardens, fruit-trees blossom and sunflowers peep over the hedge. Every picture tells a happy story, and the cottage garden has become an idyll."
In these days and in this place, where greenery is virtually non-existent outside for 6 - 8 months of the year, we bring the garden inside by taking myriads of photographs. Somehow, I feel like each summer I should be outside with my paints and easel painting the garden… more often I find my camera in hand rather than a paint brush. I have found that it is during the winter that I actually spend time painting garden plants and flowers.
As I stood by the window looking at a backyard filled with snow, a path running diagonally across it to the compost, and chickadees seeking out their particular seed from the bird dish on the gazebo deck, I loved the whiteness, the grey, and the splash of blue as the sun began to push the clouds away. I realize that I need both - the warmth and comfort of the garden and the stark white clarity of the snow. This is reflected in our house renovations as well. While the main level is a place of warmth and colour, the upstairs level is fast becoming white, cool blues and greens, with a bit of colour… In a strange way the contrasting palettes complement each other. An interesting topic of its own to pursued another day!
This fall has resulted in two 'garden' paintings: Rhubarb #3 and Hosta Garden - this latter is based on a photo from my sister's wonderful Cottage Garden where hostas reign supreme in a large area. The rhubarb paintings are shown in my last blog.
Here is the just completed, Hosta Garden.
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