outside the box

 I've had this box lying around in an attempt to prod some inspiration.  It was given to me to create a work of art around it for Outside the Box a fund-raising auction in Auburn California.  I knew I wanted to do something in encaustic with but was completely uninspired visually.  

Last week I attended a meeting of artists asked to create mesoamerican installations for the upcoming Festival de la Familia, well the research I conducted afterward became very inspiring for the box project...

First I needed to prime the box with all natural rabbit skin gesso, acylic gesso wont work with all natural bee's wax encaustic paints.  So I went out to the studio and searched my painting cabinet, only to find I'm out of rabbit skin glue...think think...ok we'll use all natural rice paste and all natural mulberry paper to make a nice white all natural surface for the encaustics to adhere to...

Next I sized images I liberated from the www, sized them to fit the box and then printed them onto masa paper.  Of course my printer only prints 8.5x11" sheets so I had to print them tiled and then assemble the tiles onto the box.  I pasted the tiled printouts to the box using rice paste.

The largest surface, on the outside of the box

The inside of the box

 

 outside edges  drying beside the smoke box where I am smoking a pastrami.  Thought I'd use the heat of the smoke box to facilitate quicker drying of box.  Its been raining and everything is taking forever and a day to dry...

Nightmare Clown

 Well I finally finished the Mixed Media Clown Painting.  As you saw in the previous post I painted the background then adhered decorative papers to the painting to create my visualization of Pennywise, the antagonist in Stephen King's novel "IT".

 I adhered marblized blue gift wrap for the collar.

 White mulberry paper makes up the face and printed scrapbook paper was used for the mouth.

 Scraps of red hand made vegetable dyed paper are the nose and eyes.  Very thin orange mulberry was layered three times for the hair and bitty bits of scraps were layered over the black mulberry eyebrows.

 I made the eyes a bit more compelling with blue linen paper for the iris and holographic foil for the pupils.  The reflective holographic paper has a checkerboard pattern which makes it appear as if the eyes may be compound.

I finished it off by drawing with color sharpie markers to create the illusion of depth and shadow.  The whole is protected by a few layers of clear matte acrylic medium.  The face and spots of highlight are enhanced with a layer of iridescent acrylic medium.

He is offered for sale at http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/your-art.cgi?login=pharecamp&title=Beep_Beep_Ritchie-1299361368t.jpg

Phenomenon: Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere Rabbits...

"It's just a rabbit" 8x8" mixed media collage on canvas panel

"Its Just a Rabbit" sketch for barenforum exchange print

"Its Just a Rabbit" kind of where I'm going with this but I'm not happy with the flourishes. still playing around with the composition. I intend to woodcut print this for an exchange with other artist and then use the keyline plate for my year of the rabbit new years cards. I'll split it into thirds and get three new years cards per pressing...

While cleaning up old files I came across this drawing that I based a woodcut print off of back in the early 1990s. I traced it to start a mixed media collage. Since this drawing is on tracing paper I'm thinking that it would be great to put into an encaustic painting. The transparencies of the paper and wax mediums will work together beautifully. I just have to get over to the art supply store and purchase a clayboard painting panel for my substrate.

"Beep Beep Ritchie!" 12x12" gallery wrapped canvas mixed media collage (in progress)
This is no where near done. This is simply a painted canvas with the cut papers collaged onto the surface. I've yet to got into it with sharpie markers to give it detail and I'm going to put some red hologram paper into the pupils. thinking of layering some more of the orange paper into the hair to give it some dimension and i will be using a dense acrylic medium in the teeth to make them appear to come out of mouth. May also work on the background a little more too.