A Spring in the Lilacs

A Spring in the Lilacs; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Encaustic; 16x24; 2008.

This is one of the first pieces in which I used incision in encaustic.  I really had no idea what to expect, and initially the scraping was more likely to create gouges rather than a (relatively) smooth surface.  It was also the first time I used a heat lamp rather than a heat gun to finish the surface…something I know that other artists working in encaustic use with great success, but I wasn’t too crazy about it.  That said, I’ll  give it another chance on another piece.

This piece also sold within the first few hours of being hung at a show, which was nice, but there’s a little bit of a story behind that.  A married couple saw the piece, and the husband fell in love with it…really fell  in love with it.  The wife, however, wanted a floral still life.  They disagreed in that very silent way couples have, when nothing much is being verbalized, but there’s a lot being communicated.  They left for a while and then came back, and it was pretty clear that the man was going to have his piece of art.  I sometimes wonder about this piece…given the wife’s desire for something else, I wonder if A Spring in the Lilacs might have met with an unfortunate accident, something like the one that befell the leg lamp in A Christmas Story.

And on that note, be sure and check out a great new blog I’ve discovered.   It’s the blog of Lisa Kairos (www.lisakarios.wordpress.com).  You’ll enjoy seeing her work, and she’s got super info on encaustic and plenty else besides.

A Peek into the Studio

Here are a few shots that show some of my tools and my primary work surface in my studio.  You will see that neatness is not a prerequisite for my work, although I am often compelled to clean simply to have space to work.  And in fact, this is about as “clean” as  it gets, unless I’ve recently changed the cheap shower curtains I use on my work tables.

One of the work tables in my studio - this one is used primarily for encaustic

In order to protect the surfaces of the work tables, which are my mother’s dining room table and my father’s desk, I have multiple layers of old sheets and tablecloths, and these are covered with the cheapest vinyl shower curtains I can find…usually about $2.99 each at Target.  I use them until their layer of encaustic drips is driving me crazy, then unload the surface, yank it off, put a new one on, get the equipment and supplies back in place, and then get back to painting.

From left, a heat lamp, a heat gun, a photographer's tacking iron, and an embossing heat gun.

I hang the heat tools that I use to work with the encaustic once it’s been applied to the support.  I learned the hard way that a hot heat gun – even turned off – can melt right through those vinyl shower curtains!

Encaustics waiting for the next round of painting

I use an old electric griddle from my kitchen as a hot plate for the encaustic.  I know that a lot of encaustic artists mix paints directly on the plate, but I always mix in my repurposed tuna cans.  The loaf pan has  unpigmented encaustic.  The encaustics in this photo are hard, not molten.

Two bins of brushes, but there are more!

These are some of the brushes I use with my encaustic.  Once a brush has been used with encaustic, it can’t go back to anything else!  I use very cheap brushes, as well as older brushes that are too worn to use with acrylics.  I generally have two or three sizes in the colors I use most often and only rarely do I clean my encaustic brushes, since I use the same brush over and over in similarly pigmented encaustic.

A wall of storage...everything for encaustic, acrylic, embroidery, beading and jewelry-making, and a ton more.

And finally, a quick look at the storage on the wall adjacent to the work table shown above…it’s clean enough.

A Little Detour from Encaustic

While I primarily work in encaustic, every so often I really need the feel of paint-loaded brush on canvas.  Here are a couple of examples of my work in acrylics.

Floral Geometric #1; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Acrylic; 24x24; 2007.

I like “Floral Geometric #1″ a lot, and a lot of people (men especially) always comment on it, but it has never sold, which has surprised me, given that I think it’s perhaps the best non-encaustic piece I’ve done.  In contrast, the one below was way more an exercise in texture than a serious effort, but I took it along to a show earlier this year when I needed to fill some space, and it sold pronto.  Go figure. 

Blue on Blue; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Acrylic; 24x36; 2008.

Embedding in Encaustic

October Anticipation #1; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Encaustic, handpainted paper, copper; 12x12. 2006

Essentially anything can be imbedded into encaustic.  In this series of three, I used handpainted paper (painted with encaustic) and copper. 

The paper was added about midway through the process, after the background had been completed.  However, only the thinnest layer of clear encaustic was brushed on top of the paper once it was placed. 

October Anticipation #2; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Encaustic, handpainted paper, copper; 12x12; 2006.

The copper was added at the end of the work in order to preserve its shiny surface.  I originally embedded the copper ever so lightly and then glazed it with the same thin layer of clear encaustic that  I used over the paper.  The outcome, though, was that the copper completely lost its sheen and was just a dull sliver beneath the surface. 

So – and this is one of the beauties of encaustic – I dug out the copper, filled the resulting impressions with encaustic, smoothed the surface, and then relaid the copper, using a small metal tool to press the copper into the surface just enough to secure it. 

 

October Anticipation #3; Malissa Martin-Wilke; Encaustic, handpainted paper, copper; 12x12; 2006.

Incision in Encaustic – Part 2

Sea Anemonea #2; Malissa Martin-Wilke; 12x12; 2008.

Another couple of examples of the use of incision are featured in this post.   In each, the incisions are not filled with encaustic, but are left open to create definition, texture, and detail.  Some of the incisions are  made while the wax is still warm and quite pliable, while others are done when the wax has thoroughly hardened, and more than one tool is used to incise, which provides subtle variety in the incisions.

Sea Anemonea #1; Malissa Martin-Wilke; 12x12; 2008.

Incising in Encaustic

I generally fill incisions in encaustic with more encaustic, as I mentioned in an earlier post (Aaaah, the Studio).  I showed a piece in progress in that posting.   Here is a different piece that uses the incise/fill with encaustic/scrape technique.   (Please forgive the background…it’s lying on the floor of my studio for this shot, and I don’t have a professional photo of it yet.)

Midsummer 1; Encaustic; 12x12, 2008. Malissa Martin-Wilke, copyrighted.

Here’s a detail of the same piece.

Detail of Midsummer #1; Malissa Martin-Wilke, copyrighted.

More to come on incision later!

Aaaahhh, the studio…

Tins of Encaustic

First, let me say that my studio is one of the upstairs bedrooms on the northeast side of the house.  Fortunately, it’s a decent-size room, but it’s certainly not a professional studio with windows situated to take advantage of natural light and custom-built cabinetry for my particular supports of choice.  You use what you have.

So…a few shots of the materials in my studio.  The one you see above is of tins (yes, once they were tuna cans) of encaustic that I’ve already pigmented, with some already nearly empty.  If you look to the left, you’ll see a tin of brown encaustic that looks to have shavings of some sort on top, and that’s exactly what it is…shavings of brown encaustic I’ve been scraping from a work in progress.  Here’s a closer view of the same shot.

Tins of Encaustic

When I’m scraping only one color, I always save the shavings and put them right back into the tin.  Here’s a photo of a piece I’m working on where you can see where I’ve already scraped.

A piece in progress

When I’m scraping or incising more than one color, I collect those shavings into a single tin and later use them when I’m mixing black encaustic, or if the colors work well together – blue and green, for instance – I might use them later as the base for an aqua or teal.

In the next post, I’ll show some of the tools I work with the most.

Ostroushko’s Nicaragua

Ostroushko's Nicaragua; Encaustic, Acrylic, Found Metal, 2005.

This piece is one of my favorites, although it is also one of my first experiments with encaustic.  And technically, the encaustic portion of it is really just straight beeswax, not the true encaustic medium I make and work with today.  In fact, that is only one of the characteristics that classifies this piece as an “experiment.” 

Another is that the support for this piece is a standard-issue canvas, which is far too flexible for encaustic.  In this case, however, it worked, simply because there is so little encaustic in this piece.  I dribbled, dropped, and splashed the molten beeswax over the canvas, before incising it to create additional texture.   And actually, the canvas was one of those that we painters know all too well…we work on something, realize it isn’t happening,  and salvage the support by creating a new work over the original one.  If you look closely, you can see through the coppery acrylic background and see faint remnants of the first piece, which was a contemporary, geographic nude in acrylics.  Not covering it completely offered a depth to the piece I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise.

Additionally, I have both acrylic and encaustic in the same piece, which I don’t do anymore unless I’m working on a mixed media piece that has only a small amount of one or the other.  Acrylic and encaustic are both great media, but they can make most unhappy companions.  That said, it worked on this experiment…funny what can happen when you have no idea what you’re doing.  I learned a lot with this one including the possibilities presented by incision of the encaustic and embedding of objects (metal screen and rusty nails, in this case).

Shortly after working on this, I grew more confident working with this wonderful molten media and began seriously studying encaustic “recipes” and techniques.  Despite the inherent flaws of technique with this piece, I’ve always loved it.  I’ve never offered it for sale, because I never wanted to let it go and also because of its non-archival nature.

And the name?  Peter Ostroushko (O-strewsh-ko) is one of my favorite musicians.  Like a lot of artists, I often play music in my studio while I’m working, and I find that the music I’m playing affects my direction.  During the work on this one, I listened to one of Peter O’s pieces entitled “Nicaragua: Prelude and Dance” repeatedly.  When I completed the piece, I could think of no better name than that of the music that inspired it.

Cottonwoods in Winter

 

Cottonwoods In Winter; Encaustic, 2008.

This is an encaustic piece I did earlier this year.  It sold in May.  Working on this piece inspired me to get a bigger heat gun.  I spent so much time working with the background layers and getting that perfectly smooth surface…and about a gazillion hours into it, I thought, “You know, Malissa, if you had a heavy-duty heat gun, this would have gone a lot faster.”  So I headed to Home Depot and bought a tool that would make any garage proud.  I got home and started working and accomplished in about half an hour what had previously taken two or three.  So I was not only happy with this piece when it was finished, I was really happy with the advance in technique! 

This is also one of the few pieces I’ve done that I started with an exact idea in mind and carried it through to completion.  I usually work a lot more loosely than that and prefer to start with a color, texture, or concept in mind and following it down a meandering path.

A Very Good Place to Start

Yesterday, I showed at the Lawrence Art Guild’s Holiday Art Fair in Lawrence, Kansas.  Given the economy and the fact that I hadn’t had time to prepare any new small works that would be more affordable, I wasn’t expecting a lot in terms of sales or crowd.  And that was how the day went…until…

Some backstory:  I love the abstract work of a local artist, Karen Wiley, and I have very much aspired to even approach her level of work.  I have spent a lot of time standing in front of her paintings any time I find them around town, just studying and admiring.  And just last week, I received an announcement of a holiday open studio, and I hung it on the fridge, telling my husband, “We’re going to that!  Karen Wiley will be there!” 

So yesterday, who came into my booth?  Good guess – Karen Wiley!  And she loved one of my pieces in particular.  I was so thrilled, and also a little intimidated, because geez, there she was in my booth, and I’m self-taught and have only been painting for about four and a half years, and she’s well-known and so good…and so went my mental litany.  But it was great, and I really appreciated her appreciation of my work.  We visited awhile, and then she went on her way.  Later, Karen came back.  She kept studying the piece, and finally she said, “I have to have this.  It says so much to me, and I see so much in it.”  You could have knocked me over with a feather, to use a cliche.  And so the encaustic painting “Midsummer #3″ became Karen’s. 

I will be honest and say that to have someone whom I view as my local art idol love a piece of  mine so much was incredibly affirming and a little overwhelming.  What an honor.  And I think I blathered like an idiot for a few minutes…actually, I know I did.  Oh, well.

And one more piece of backstory:  I had taken this piece off my easel the night before and thrown on the hanging hardware just in time to get it to the show.   I don’t even have a photo of it!  It’s the third in a series of “Midsummer” pieces I’ve been working on.  But I’m sure Karen would let me come take a photo of it at some point if I need to.