925.

Fleshing out the second of the abstract figurative studies:

Acrylic on Gesso'd Paper, 8"x8"

926.

More experiments with Encaustics:

1. Adding visual interest by incorporating tissue and rice paper with inkjet printing of patterns and textures. The paper becomes translucent once it's saturated with wax allowing the printed patterns to show through under the wax.

Encaustic on board, 12"x12"

2. Transferring patterns from laser-printouts (or xeroxes) onto a warm wax surface. (Basically put the paper printed side down on a waxed surface - then use a blunt instrument (like a spoon) to burnish the pattern onto the wax. The pattern transfers well, but it's incredibly fragile so has to be treated with care, and needs more wax on top to preserve it.

Encaustic on Plywood, 12"x12"

3. Adding pigment (in this case black charcoal) powder directly onto the wax and then melting it to create some interesting effects...

Encaustic on Board, 12" by 12"

927.

Experiments in Encaustic Transparency: Since encaustic wax is translucent by nature, I was curious to see what difference back-lighting would make if the wax was applied to a transparent surface such as polystyrene. However wax needs a porous surface to bind to, so the polystyrene needs to first be covered by some porous material such as rice paper.

Expt. 1: Here's the piece backlit from one side, and then turned around and backlit from the other side.

Expt. 2: Another experiment using different pigments, some of which are more opaque than the pigments used above.

Here's the piece without back-lighting:

And then here's the piece with back-lighting:

928.

Psssst! Wanna buy a t-shirt or two with the design below?

Head on over to http://www.stillwaitingforstuff.com/  for this and other designs...

929.

Fleshing out the first of the studies.

Step 1: Adding a structure to the background space.

The grid of rectangles in the background above is actually a carefully calculated matrix of shapes utilizing 2 different interleaved mathematical Fibbonacci series. (Fibbonaci series, if you recall, are famous for incorporating the 'Golden Ratio' of 1.6 which is considered to be a 'natural' composition ratio that our brains intuitively react to).

Step 2. Start slapping on color:

Step 3. Experimenting with adding color to the figure.

Step 4. Experiment with the palette.  Since these are fairly small images, it's easy to make drastic changes.

Step 5. I didn't like the pinkish tints above, so back to something more sober

Step 6. Where I finally ended up with the study

Abstract Figure 1, Acrylic on Gesso'd Paper, 8"x8"

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Intrigued by the idea of combining figurative with abstract, somewhat like the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 50s and 60s, I started sketching out a series of studies:

These studies are small (about 8x8 inches) and they're actually all on the same sheet.

I decided to make 2 of the figures dark to see how that would effect the outcome ...

931.

Another abstract acrylic (this one's still work in progress):

Interstitial 3: Acrylic on Canvas, 30" x 30"

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Experiments with Encaustic!
Encaustics are an ancient tradition of using beeswax as the medium for creating art, typically by mixing pigments with wax and resin, and then applying them with heat. It's very different from using traditional paints and can be pretty hard to control. These are some early experiments with encaustics:

1. Notice the unique built-up texture from the Wax - this would be very hard to implement with paint.

2. It's hard to achieve fine lines with encaustics without using some kind of stencil ...

3. With the right density and temperature, encaustics can actually be handled like paint. The tradition of this kind of painting dates back to the early egyptians.

4. The translucency of enaustics makes it excellent for collage and mixed media work. The example below uses several images (on tissue paper) that have been covered in, and captured by, the wax.