Encaustic Crowns
Tag Archives: mixed media
Temporary Process Over Product Situation
It begins with thumbnail sketches. Actually, it starts with a bit of research then sketches.
I then create stencils, prepare the hardboards with three coats of beeswax, carve the stencils into the wax…
add pretty papers…
and begin painting. Once all the boards have first coats, I give them individual attention.
Finally, I add more collage components.
I’m taking a break right now because what usually happens is that I want to do everything right away instead of savoring the process. Encaustic is not an instant gratification type thing. And as much as I have the image of a finished product in my head, there are a lot of happy accidents that occur along the way.
What has already happened is the classic “I know what I don’t want” scenario. The great thing about the wax is that it can be scraped off – chalk it up to a problem solving direction.
I love manufacturing a visual language that communicates my secrets and I LOVE having the only key. <3
Textured Fantasies & Aquamarine Dreams
Thank you, Cheryl Chappell, for curating an amazing art show at Edgewood Gallery, 216 Tecumseh Road, Syracuse, New York 13224. Dana Stenson, Lauren Bristol and David Robertson are three of the most positive energy-infused artists/wonderful people living and working in Central New York.
Stenson creates precious and semi-precious gem jewelry with silver and gold. Everything is handmade and completely gorgeous!
Bristol is a fiber artist – she is exhibiting coil baskets this time. They are beautifully crafted pieces made with natural fibers including silk threads.
David Robertson’s paintings dominate the walls. These paintings are from several different series of his work and all pertain to his Buddhist practice.
The show continues through November 15, 2024. The jewelry is cash and carry but I think the rest will be available at the end of the exhibition.
Aquamarine ring – sold!
The gallery is open Tuesday-Friday 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM and Saturday 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM.
Joy is in the Library
Joy Engelhart was the January and February 2020 artist exhibiting at the Community Library of DeWitt and Jamesville. (5110 Jamesville Road, DeWitt, New York 13078). I caught the tail end of the show on Sunday.
She is a “signature” member of the Central New York Watercolor Society. These pieces are watercolor and mixed-media, a combo of portraits and still-lifes. I am assuming that she will take down today. The library opens at 10 AM. Call (315) 446-3578 for the deets.
Library Hours
| Monday – Thursday | 10 AM – 9 PM |
| Friday | 10 AM – 5 PM |
| Saturday | 10 AM – 5 PM* |
| Sunday | 1 PM – 5 PM* |
*Summer hours:
| Saturday | 10 AM – 2 PM |
| Sunday | CLOSED |
Services limited 15 minutes before closing
Garden of Eddie
Eddie Dominguez transports us to his version of the Garden of Eden in his show at the Everson Museum of Art‘s Robineau Memorial Gallery.
His vision is one that reflects a heritage in which landscape and religion play vital roles. He is from New Mexico, although his art education took him to Ohio and New York, which is why we are able to fall under his spell here in Syracuse, New York. This show was curated by the Columbus Museum of Art and will be on exhibit until Sunday, July 28, 2019.
Dominguez combines ceramics and found objects to create his irreverent world. It is a playful, fantastical and thoroughly original body of work. <3
*** from the Everson Museum of Art website
The youngest of eight children, Eddie Dominguez grew up in Tucumcari, New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Amarillo on historic Route 66. He came to national prominence in the mid–1980s for highly stylized dinnerware sets that also stack into sculptural forms. In his work, Dominguez frequently references his home state’s vegetation, landforms, weather, and Hispano–Catholic culture. The dual nature of Dominguez’s objects, which inhabit the gray area between utility and art for art’s sake, reflects his personal experience as a New Mexican who studied ceramics in the Anglo–dominated East: whether we see “art” or “craft,” local Hispano or melting pot American depends completely on the immediate context.
The Everson Museum of Art is located at 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York, 13202. Call (315) 474-6064 for more information.
EVERSON MUSEUM OF ART HOURS:
| SUNDAY 12-5 MONDAY CLOSED TUESDAY CLOSED WEDNESDAY 12-5 |
THURSDAY 12-8 FRIDAY 12-5 FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH NOON–8:00PM SATURDAY 10-5 |
Dozens
I thought it would be fun to create trompe l’oeil donuts. We made them from an armature of aluminum foil, paper towels and masking tape.
Students then applied Mod Podge with a brush to paper towel bits, adhering them to the armature. They really looked like glazed donuts – so cool!
Cell-u-clay was next. It is a paper pulp that is applied wet in a sort of oatmeal consistency. This was the frosting.
Each student (in two of my 8th grade art classes) created a dozen donuts. Because I didn’t think six was enough, lol. They painted the Cell-u-clay with acrylics and added decorative details.
Some students glued their finished pieces to foamboard and others placed them in boxes provided by the local Dunkin’ Donuts. The projects are currently on display in the library at Chittenango Middle School, Chittenango, New York.
I just loved this project. I think everyone loved it! Students in the 9th period B day class even came in during their study hall to become “donut fairies” – they helped the A day group! Everyone helped each other and it was truly magical. So fun! <3
Angels
I tweaked and re-worked/finessed/finished twelve more angel paintings. It is such an incredible feeling to complete this project. It is Futura, the painting series I have been talking about making for many years. Now I must manifest the perfect venue to display all twenty-four of them. They are encaustic and mixed media on masonite mounted on chalkboard (the chalkboard was edited out in these pics). They are 8″ x 10″ mounted on 11″ x 14″ board. Priced at $111. <3
Genesis
I did not use any silver paint this time, but I did turn my house into an art factory (Warhol reference) this past week. I went at it full speed, tackling masonite boards with a sort of crazy frenzy. I guess I should have put a drop cloth down on the floor and on my great-grandmother’s old kitchen table, but it was wax and ended up coming up pretty easily with a heat source and a crap load of elbow grease and an inordinate amount of time.
Seriously, now my kitchen does not look like like anything had happened in there at all and yet, I have three dozen completed encaustic paintings floating around my living room, dining room and back porch. It’s just nuts.
Futura was born. It is this series of angel paintings. They are 8″ x 10″ encaustics. They are mounted on 11″ x 14″ chalkboard painted masonite but I cropped them here to show the detail.
I absolutely love the texture of the wax. It has the consistency of frosting. The house still smells of beeswax, so encaustic is this amazing phenomenological experience, affecting all senses. I am in love with this body of work.
I created a dozen angels. There are a dozen more on deck. I won’t get to them until the summer unless I spend another weekend yanking out the supplies and cordoning off that room from my cat. These paintings will eventually be available at Syracuse Yoga. I will let you know. It is opening sometime next month.
It feels beyond amazing to have given life to these pieces. Sooooo incredibly satisfying! I will upload pics of the finished horseshoes soon. I must go back to work tomorrow and this Saturday from 1:00-3:00 pm is my closing party at Half Moon Bakery & Bistro. Hope to see you there! There will be cupcakes! <3
In a Blanket
Here are the pictures from my art exhibition at Chittenango Middle School, Chittenango, New York. I’ve combined the Messages from the Other Voice series with the Pompano Revisited series to saturate the yellow walls of the school library with my personal narrative.
They will be up through April 2017.
The work looks better in person – the lighting is not great in the pics, but that is because the artwork is so high up on the walls. I do love the way the library looks soooo fresh and different with each show we install and everyone’s artwork ends up looking great. The captive audience thing always works for me, but it is funniest when I ask students if they have been to the library – if they have seen my art and they say something like I didn’t notice.
That actually doesn’t matter to me – no, not one bit – because I know that they have noticed it, if only in a smidgen of a subliminal fashion. It doesn’t take but a glance to place a positive aesthetic into someone’s visual cortex, lol. And then you can sit back and witness the processed results. It’s kind of amazing. And I really LOVE that. Art benefits people in so many ways in which they are not even remotely aware. It is everywhere. All around us. That’s me being subversive – in a good way.
Blanket of love, people. Blanket of love…. <3
American Gothic-eee
This lesson is inspired by Grant Wood’s American Gothic.
Students had to conceive an idea for the composition. I had planned to have them draw thumbnail sketches, as well as lists of what props they would need – but after showing my accelerated Studio in Art kids the ones done by my students in 2012 and 2013 via my school web-site, they just knew what they were going to do. It was the craziest thing and really phenomenal the way they all collaborated with one another.
Each student planned the day for their picture – we had two weeks before Christmas break and it was a tight schedule for the twelve of them. They all brought their costumes, props and their A games with them, lol!
I just loved how they were able to count on each other and how responsible everyone was for their respective part in both their own work and that of their friend(s). Models allowed the artist to direct them. The poses replicated the ones in Wood’s painting with the person on the right looking straight into the camera and the other one gazing in the distance. I placed the school’s green screen against a wall for the photo shoots, printed the pictures then cut and pasted them to foamboard.
They created the backgrounds using a variety of mixed-media including tissue and decorative papers, toothpicks, beads, glitter and more. The border was done in metallic paint to act as a frame. A picture from the internet chosen to convey a theme was selected as reference and they attacked the canvas panels with vigor. It was so exciting to see them work. There was so much confidence amidst the chaos of all the materials.
Once the background was finished and dry (everything attached with Mod-Podge and/or hot glue), we placed 3-D Os on the back of the foamboard and poppped the pics on top. The result – twelve very different, very cool mixed-media pieces that are currently on display in a glass case in the atrium of Chittenango Middle School in Chittenango, New York.
