post encaustic oil paintings.

As some of you may know, I have been on a pretty intense encaustic kick for the past few years. At the outset of my experimentations with encaustic painting, I wondered if the change in medium would affect my oil paintings. I am now beginning a project to find out. Since I started with encaustics, I have done a few oil paintings here and there but now I will delve back into oils more fully with a new series. Above is one of the first of this new group- I just completed this diptych on Saturday and haven't named it yet. I have been doing a lot of birds with radiating eyes, and other starburst archetypes. My figures seem the same as they ever were, but some of the colors seem brighter, some of the linework seems more defined- this could have been the influence of the encaustics.

Below is an encaustic painting I am working on in conjunction with the oil painting project- I just couldn't give it up totally! I enjoy the brain shift jumping from one way of working to the other. This is my magical volvo station wagon before and after putting lines in the rainbows.

And here are my beautiful daylillies. I love seeing the bright colors all over the yard. It's a shame that they only last a day, but kind of cool that the placement of the flowers is re arranged on a daily basis.

Inspiration from Elizabeth City.

Our show in Elizabeth City at the Arts of the Abermarle went very well. Elizabeth City is a fun small town on a finger of the beautiful Abermarle sound. The air was breezy and the water sparkly. Our hosts, Joe and Carolyn Peele showed us a great time. Ingrid went on her first boat ride. Here are my paintings from our show.

The city even wrote up the show in their paper. Here is a link to the article- /annapodrisworksinprogress/2010/06/inspiration-from-elizabeth-city.html

This building will probably end up in one of my paintings very soon.

Empty studio, random daydreams

Here is my almost empty studio after taking everything to the Block gallery this week. It's just the paintings I am working on at the

moment.

This is an empty warehouse on East and Davie. I want it for my art studio! Also it has a little yard in the back. Perfect for a veggie patch. I haven't been inside this building. I imagine it gets some good light with all those windows. I would paint them red though. I could have my space there, and there would still be some room for Keith to paint. We could also have a classroom space and teach classes. This is a random daydream. The warehouse probably is like a million $ even though it's dilapidated. Keith and I are still happy at Artspace anyway. But, City of Raleigh take note- some one should renovate this space and make it into something.

Making lines

The lines you can make with encaustic paint are really cool. They hover above your painting, encased in clear encaustic wax. The process is this- put a few layers of clear wax where you want to make lines. Then incise your lines using something sharp. I use a clay carving tool. Then, using a brush loaded with the colored wax that you intend for your line, force the wax into the incisions. Once the wax has cooled a little use a scraping tool to scrape off the extra colored wax, and viola, you have your line!

Stencils.

I like encaustic. It's hard to control and doesn't always do what you think it will. But painting with it makes you use another side of your brain because the process is so different. Painting with a brush, you can't get a lot of precise work done because that's slow painting. If the brush in your hand hovers above your surface for any minute amount of time, your encaustic paint will dry and will not transfer from brush to board. This is especially true when you are using a smaller brush trying to do detail work. Everyone knows I love doing precise details. It satisfies the OCD part of my brain. I love that as messy and unpredictable as encaustic paint can be, you can still make it very precise by using stencils. I got into cutting snowflakes a few years back. I love symmetry and pattern. This skill has really helped me in cutting the tiny stencils you see above. Each one is about an inch and a half. After I painted the stencils, I coated them with clear to protect all the details. Then I started making birds, because I love birds and I am on a bird kick right now. This is the smallest of the three diptychs I am working on right now.

Iconography

I have had a few hours in the studio this week and have been able to maintain focus enough to work out some details in these diptychs. This pinwheel image has been occurring over and over again. It's kind of like a pie, or a color wheel or a radiant halo like those in pre-renaissance religious paintings. I am still working in oils on these paintings, and debating on whether to do encaustic over them like I had originally intended. The oil painting has a glossy, viscous surface, and the encaustic is smooth and uniform. Its surface can be very shiny if buffed, or matte if left alone. Anyway, these are pretty spare as far as what is in them. I am going for the feel of a forest instead of trying to paint the whole forest that's in my mind. From day to day, each step I take on these, I am enjoying. I really don't know what they will end up looking like.

A manic creative outpouring

I had a weird week. Something really sad happened to a good friend. I had a hard time painting, I was really sad, I still am. I was also very stressed over not having enough work. I know at the end of the month when I put up my shows, the paintings will be there, they always are. It's just getting to that point. Anyway, the sadness and the stress stifled my energy for most of the week. This morning I think I got three times as much done as I did the whole rest of the week. I was really happy to be working and getting ideas again. Back to normal, somewhat.

Here is what is happening with the two diptychs. They are oil on board. That gives me the option to go in with encaustic later if I want. We will see. It's been a long time since I painted people. It's time. The one on the left has a bunch of birds in it. They aren't fully developed yet. I am excited to see what happens to these paintings.

Diptych and more diptychs

Here is how the 1rst diptych is ending up. The left panel is oil on canvas, the right panel is oil and encaustic on panel. I love the idiosyncrasy of the two panels. They line up enough, but not totally. I also wanted each to stand on its own, so the painting can be displayed with panels flush or separated.

I also wanted to start some new diptychs because the format intrigues me. I like the duality, and the fact that two come together to make one painting. These two paintings are on panel, and I am starting them in oil and will finish them with encaustic. I am starting with abstract forms and I will see what they become. I keep seeing birds in these circles. I paint a lot of birds. Perhaps too many. I am trying to fight the urge to make these next two diptychs about birds, but I may have to.

Diptych.

I thought I'd try a diptych after finishing my Owl triptych The King and Queen. (a photo of this painting will be on my site early next week.)

I happened to have a canvas and a wood panel the same size hanging around in the studio and got the idea to do a diptych. One half of it will be oil on canvas and the other half will be oil and encaustic on panel.

I see this as rays of light, or tops of parasols. Or colorful pies. It's nice to start out abstract and just see what happens.

Monoprints!

Monoprints! Well, actually monotypes.... Here are some of the prints that came out of the monoprint class I just finished teaching. There are a lot of different techniques involved, but basically monoprinting is painting on a plexiglass and then running it through the press. You can do multiple passes through the press to create layers, or do just one pass. Jessica Moore used an image from a book to inspire her chair print. Tara Nelson was able to get a lot of color variation and smooth color transitions using a brayer to create her abstract prints. Debbie Hicks uses the textures from lace, fabric and plant life in her layered prints. Mark Healy used the brayer and the subtractive technique to create this helicopter image.

I am excited to be offering this class at the Pullen art center.

Bird Triptych

This painting was kind of inevitable. It's spring, and I had a TON of fabric scraps laying around the studio. And some painted rice paper. And some National Geographic clippings from the 70s. The bird triptych was crying out to be made. This is the start of it. Now I am adding line work and other things. The king and queen are on the center panel. I can't wait to do the eyes. Fun!!

Layers

Three layers on the bird painting so far. a background painted in oils, then a layer of clear wax. A rice paper bird painting. The clear wax I use to affix the rice paper actually makes it translucent so that only the paint on the paper really shows. Then I used stencils around the bird and I'm starting some line work.

The green colorful picture is a detail of the deer painting I have been working on. It now has many layers of cloth, painting, line work and stenciling. I love how the layers have built up a rich texture.

There's something I like about taking my time with a painting. Painting a layer, waiting a week. It gives me time to know what the best next move for the painting will be. It gives the painting a chance to marinate before I put in the next ingredient.

Spring!

I am usually in the mood to make art but not always. I have come to the realization that I only need to make art when I really feel like it, thus avoiding making bland art that is just "going through the motions". This past week I haven't been in the mood. Instead I use my studio time to organize my collage papers, clean and get rid of extraneous stuff, and basically gear up for when the time to paint comes. Out of the studio I have been drinking in the spring weather and colors. These are my favorite crocuses in my yard. I love the find purple lines, so perfect. There isn't a lot of color out there right now, so the color that I do see I really appreciate even more. It's very important to my process and to my spirit to spend time in nature surrounded by these beautiful colors.

Inspiring Me

Often I am asked- "What inspires your paintings?" This is surprisingly hard to pin down. I usually say, " Walking in nature, plants, people, animals, life." It's the truth, but vague.

For one, I love the stark quality of the world this time of year. Everything seems to be outlined. It's partly the quality of the light. I love the crisp air and the shadows. I love how all the plants are starting to think about putting leaves out. I imagine how, in a few weeks, there will be bright green tiny leaves coming out of every plant that has been bare.

I like how in the winter you can see the tree's skeleton so much better than when it has leaves. I enjoy noting the wildy differing structures of trees. I think about trees a lot.

The visual representation of a tree that branches at both ends is a model of the universe as a living organism, a metaphorical map that serves equally well for the cosmos external to the individual and the spectrum of consciousness deep within -- with its highest branches in the heavens and its roots deep within the dark underrealm.

-Howard Rheingold

Blips and blurbs

This dog is painted in oils on top of some encaustic paint. I scratched through the oil paint to carve the lines revealing the blue encuastic paint.

Next there are the two that I talked about in the last post. Now with deer and an octopus. Both were made with stencils I cut. Sometimes that's the best way to get a definite shape when painting with encaustics.

In the same painting as the dog, I have a floating lake with a swan. I have painted oil on top encaustics here too. You can see the difference in the textures really well in this photo.

Then there is a mandala that I've painted with watercolor on rice paper. It is something I will eventually use in an encaustic painting. I do a lot of rice paper doodles- and a lot of them end up as either backgrounds or cut shapes in the encaustic pieces.

For instance this green bird that I worked on today has a rice paper painting background.

And lastly an ode to our "new" car, an old volvo station wagon that is meant to be our "family" car. I was so happy to get this car old volvo station wagons are my dream cars. However, this car has brought heartbreak, having been in the shop twice now in one week. Everyone cross your fingers that our baby will be ok!!!

breathing butterflies and two newbies

I have worked a lot more on the Breathing Butterflies piece. It is almost done but just needs a few finishing touches. It is very different from my other work, a bit of a departure for me. When I am working I like to always keep an open mind and try not to fall into doing the same sort of patterns and subjects I've already done. If I do a subject again, I want to re explore the subject and re interpret it. Anyway, this one is very different and I have learned a lot working on it.

I was lucky this week to give a demonstration of encaustic techniques to a group of college students. The two pieces on the right are the result of the demo. They are just beginnings at this point. I like doing demos and talking about my work because it forces me to explain what I do in words and then I really get more of an understanding myself. The one on the left was done by layering 7 colors and using my heat gun to swirl the colors together. On the right, the background is a piece of rice paper I had painted previously that I affixed to the panel with clear wax. Then I put several strips of cloth that I had left over from some sewing projects. I then demonstrated how to do stenciling with encaustic and also how to do linework. I really enjoyed doing stenciling, it has been a while since I have used that technique and I plan on doing more in both of these pieces.

swirling ideas....

Lately I have been making good use of my studio time. I seem to have been busy for several months on seemingly unrelated projects that are now coming together. I think last month I was focusing on oils, now I am doing lots of mixed media work. I had a lot of nice rice paper painted and ready to collage. Several older encaustic pieces were revamped with some scraping and collage. I am working on a gouache painting of mice and some of the rice paper worked it's way into that painting too in the form of raindrops. Then a watercolor/gouache painting I had all but given up on found it's way into an encaustic painting full of swirls and clouds. It's the green ones up top. I am probably most excited about this one, I feel like it's new and strange. Most of the others involve animals and creatures. Probably influenced by the many many many kids books I have been reading to Ingrid. Look out- one of these days I plan to self publish my own!!!

I am working on an encaustic and an oil painting this month. The encaustic one- working title- "breathing butterflies" is on the left. The woman in the painting was made by cutting up an old Time Life book- that series has inspired a lot of art from me over the years. There's always one in the thrift store it seems. The woman is cut from a black and white photo of monarch butterflies. I used wax to affix her to the surface. She is totally encased in wax now so the paper is impervious to the elements and won't yellow over time! I want to make it seem like she is exhaling all these butterflies. The background was really fun to do, a lot of scraping and gouging and filling in and then more scraping. I've never made a painting quite like this one before. I'm not sure what else I will do to this one. Something......

My oil painting (on the right) is almost done. It's a manifestation of mother earth. The lighting is bad, sorry, I'll take a "real" picture of it when it's done. It's really colorful. Something I notice while I hike around or even just walk around my neighborhood are all the colors there are in nature. So many subtle variations and striking combinations. I want to celebrate the colors I see in this painting. I worked really hard on the trees. They each have at least 4 or 5 colors in the bark and I painted each leaf individually(!) which took forever. I didn't notice the time going by- it's like a meditation painting those tiny leaves.

Mural is a no go

Unfortunately I didn't win the competition. I was a little disappointed after all the hard work but I gained a lot of experience that I will be able to use next time I enter. I will do a mural some day- this just wasn't it. I offer my congratulations to the artist that won. Rejection is always a part of being an artist and I have faced my share like everyone else. It bothered me for like an hour. My good friend Leslie said- rejection is good- it means they weren't ready for your art!! I definitely don't take it personally anymore. It's like water off a duck's back. Now I need to enter another contest and get some more irons in the fire!