It’s been almost a month since my last post. Part of that time I was in Florida enjoying warm weather and seeing lots of tropical landscape. One day we went out on a Daisy Walk to hike and cruise while photographing the biota of Central Florida. I was especially excited by the many textures we saw, some of which are captured in the picture above. I also collected sand and sea shells to bring home with the thought of incorporating them into encaustic works (clearly a topic for another post if that works out).
Building up texture: Often during my Thursday morning Encaustic Class at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center I hear comments on my texture. As you can tell by my art I do love texture and sometimes struggle to remove it when there is too much. Encaustic texture comes in (at least) two varieties. You can build up your texture above the surface with or without stencils and other unstructured tools, for example you can fling wax on the canvas, leaving a very satisfying mark. You can add things to your work making it Mixed Media. I am very fond of using heavy twine and bits of copper and rust.
Digging into your art: But texture works both ways and you can create texture by scraping away (sometimes reapplying the bits as in my piece White Dahlia), by incising, by stabbing (see my Dragon Series #5) or using any of a number of tools as in the photo below – some of these are for printing while others are from my dentist’s broken tool bin.
Just flat: If I really want that super flat surface, I can put a piece face down on my palette or iron it. Check out Denny Griffith’s other world in Columbus Monthly a year ago when he describes ironing his encaustic canvases before painting on them with oils. Denny was still President at CCAD when I started in 2010 and we miss his presence in this world.
