More Hearts for the Arts

I've been working on some encaustic pieces for the above event and I've finished them.  I also pasted felt to the backs, signed the backs and added hangers.  Oh and I named them, Wings 1-3.

For more information on the Hearts for the Arts fundraising event please go to the following website:

http://www.friendsofsmac.org/

The event is also listed in Facebook where you can see images of other works by other contributing artists:

https://www.facebook.com/events/259050367561423/

Heart for the Arts

I'm currently working on a mixed media encaustic triptych for a local charity auction... See the Wiki on Encaustic for more information on the medium.

First I adhered white mulberry paper to three wooden hearts then coated the surface with clear encaustic medium.

Spent a few days playing with paper and sketching ideas.  What you see here is only a fraction of what I have in mind. The beauty of this medium is the ability to float stuff in between layers.

Now that I have an idea of where I will start I've painted in the firs layer of color.

You can see the muffin tin of paints melting on one griddle and on the other griddle I have tins of medium and metallic mixes melting.  I make my own encaustic paints.  I use 1 part damar resin to 8 parts natural beeswax.  The damar raises the melting point of the wax and helps it to buff up to a sheen.  For color I use some powder pigments but they are expensive and I've found that crushed soft pastels (professional artist's chalks for drawing) work just as well, are less expensive, they take up less room and I can use them for more than one technique.   Plus I get a greater variety of rich jewel like colors to work with for less money.  It takes very little pastel powder mixed into the melted medium to get vivid colors.  I like my paints to be translucent since I layer inclusions into the works. 

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...

Two Art Shows Coming Up but will I be there?

I have works in two exhibits opening this weekend; I hope to be dividing my time between the two Galleries on Saturday evening. I've got a severe cold and ear infection, I'm not very confident that I'll be well enough to be running around town by Saturday. We'll see, if my bent twig Megan is up to doing the driving I may be able to handle it.

Speaking of Bent Twigs (how's that for a segue) one of the exhibits titled "Bent Twigs" is a show in which up and coming artists works will show along side works by an established artist that mentored them. The above encaustic painting will be hung with two more of my works on the same wall as three of my bent twig Megan Robinson's works.

the above painting by Megan Robinson is showing in the bent twigs exhibit at the Vox Gallery

A large body of my works form the Zen Series will be on display at the U20 Gallery this month as well. I'm quite honored to be represented in this gallery incarnation of the "Bridge to Arts" organization. Bridge to Arts promises to be a significant influence in support of the arts in Sacramento.

the above painting titled "Cerberus" is from my Zen Series of artworks created by the universe... It will be exhibited with a large body of other works from the series.

I donated the above silkscreen print to a silent charity auction that will be held at the Vox Gallery this Saturday. The proceeds from the auction will benefit the National Transplant Assistance Fund.

Dr. Atl and Lady Liberty
Original Silk Screen Print
18 x 24" monoprint silkscreen on white Stonehenge paper. Edition of 15.
This is print number 15 of 15.

Dr. Atl waxes philosophic with Lady Liberty in the Library of the Americas in this postmortem collaboration. The positive for this print was drawn by my late mentor Carol Gilbert-Wagner. It was in preparation for an edition of prints of imagery from her large painting "Conversations with Liberty."

Carol had given me the positive on mylar to take home and said when she was feeling better she would come over and the two of us would pull an edition of silkscreen prints from it. She never did feel better; a few weeks later she left us for the grandest adventure of all.

I went ahead and burned a screen with Carol's positive and printed it over my own abstract silkscreen monoprints. The abstract background colors are different in every print.

To honor Carol anytime I offer one of these prints for sale the proceeds will go toward a charity.

if you can't make the auction one of the prints may be purchased from my Etsy.com shop (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10413928) where half the proceeds will benefit one of Carol's favorite charities "The Maitreya Project." http://www.maitreyaproject.org/en/index.html

Now What...

Did my final review for the MFA (master's in fine art degree) in December. The degree was awarded. I presented the following 8 cards and several recent derivative works.

Buzzed 36x48" Mixed Media Encaustic Painting (unfinished)

Calaca 2009 8.5x8.5" Collagraph Plate

Magus II 16x20" Mixed Media Encaustic Painting

Foolish Mandala 36x48" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting

this is by no means the end. I intended this project to be the beginning of a life work. Really -- there are 78 cards in a tarot deck, there is no way I could complete that in a year and a half! I do intend to complete 10 editions of 78 cards! In the next few month I plan to re-work the fool and the magus while I research and design the rest of the major arcana. I also plan to continue creating derivative works. And of course its time to start looking for my first teaching position...

And just to reassure you followers of this project -- the design for strength and a quicky sketch of my first visualization of the hermit...

Featured Artwork

One of my works, A Maze Me, a 6" x 6" encaustic painting has been chosen to be part of the Featured Artwork rotation on the homepages at World Wide Arts Resources and absolutearts.com. The feature will be on 2009-03-13. The duration of the feature is one day and the rotation changes every few minutes. Please stop by at http://wwar.com and http://www.absolutearts.com and take a look at my featured artwork.

This is one of four 6" square encaustics. I've framed them in 8x8" shadow boxes and they look great grouped on a wall.











Top Left: Cosmology,
Top Right: I Give You My Heart,
Bottom Left: A Maze Me,
Bottom Right: Shooters

An Altar to the Bee

I just finished my final project for my Sacred Geometry class. I created an altar to bees using encaustic (wax) painting medium, a Super (bee hive box), bee hive frames, altered stickers, wooden bees, live flowers, candles and found objects.



My favorite found object is a vintage honey pot my mother in law was about to toss out.



Something really cool happened while I was doing the encaustic painting, a very large honey bee flew through the altar and buzzed around each of the melting encaustic color pans then left.


I told my sacred geometry professor that it must have been Artemis coming to bless the project...







Remember you can always click on the images to see larger views!