Track Elevation, encaustic on wood, 2002, 13" x
48"
For the suite “Section-Elevation” I raided the New Brunswick
Archives for architects’ drawings which, with my new techniques,
I could render right down to the most delicate lines and details.This
drawing then becomes a matrix for the painter’s free brush. On this
one I superimposed present-day graffiti from the existing building, which
is, alas, collapsing from neglect.
Is There Anybody Out There?
Encaustic paint (for those who don't know) is made with beeswax and pigment, and is painted on when in its molten state. Some people put damar resin or other ingredients (?) in it, but my paint is just beeswax, which I buy from a local beekeeper, and pigment from art suppliers, my favourite of which is Cornelissen's, in London, England. As far as I know, I'm the only encaustic painter in my home town, and I haven't met very many farther afield. I started experimenting with it ten years ago, with two pages in an artists' handbook to go by; from there it was self-teaching all the way, with the complete devotion of the one-trick pony.
I make up my colours in tomato paste cans and set them on an electric hamburger grill. Yes, I have an exhaust hood. I use natural bristle brushes, which I saw off to a length of 5", so that they can sit in the cans without tipping them over. This looks after the hot application of paint, which goes on "wet" and "dries" within about ten seconds. One of my techniques is stencilling, with stencils made of duct tape and, when they want to be very intricate, Mactac, or sticky shelf paper. By sticking a sheet of this down on a glass surface I can cut very spidery stencils with a knife. The wax paint, with its quick drying time, lends itself well to this. Nine Men's Morris is done thus; the dark brown areas represent the stencil.
But the king of techniques is "intaglio", a term which I borrowed from my printmaking days. The great thing about encaustic paint is that, when it isn't wet (read "hot") it's dry ("cold"). So in the intervals between applications, you can do everything with it that you could do with, well, wax! You can cut, incise, dig out, scrape off, and then you can apply the hot wax again...You can see my intaglio in Book of the Dead and Track Elevation, and a woodcut version of it in Brücke Manifesto.
Now I think I'll shut up and not give away any more trade secrets. But
I'm very curious to know if anybody else has discovered similar uses for
encaustic. I'd enjoy a little shoptalk. Why not send me an email? petitesarah@ciut.fm
