new encasutics First Snow i & ii

"First Snow i", 12 x 24" encaustic on cradled panel
$895 beautifully framed

So now that it is winter and it is too cold to paint outside, I am back in my studio working with the wax. I painted this in my friend, Tracy Proctor's beautiful encaustic studio. When I brought it home my hubby said "I REALLY like this -wish it was bigger!" He immediately went out to the lumber store and bought me a 24x48" piece of baltic birch and made a cradle for it so it wouldn't warp while painting. It took me 16 hours, but I just completed it, the largest encaustic painting I have done to date!

"First Snow ii", 24x48" encaustic on cradled panel
$2895 beautifully framed

It is really different working this large. I found I needed to make small containers of a bunch of colour variations so I had enough of each colour to cover a large space. My usual practice is to have one griddle with large containers of a few key colours that I use to mix other colour variations from, as well as a large pot of clear medium and a container of soy wax to clean my brushes in. I use the other griddle as a mixing palette, where I put out small amounts of colours from manufactured or home made wax pigments and then add small amounts of other colours to get a huge range of colour options. In my work I love to have a range of lights, mids and darks of equal value so that I can get colour variation =life. If you click on the large painting image, you can hopefully see what I mean. For example in the snow shadow area there are 5 different values (light to dark) of blue grey. I bought some small stainless steal condiment cups at a local restaurant supplier, so I could have a container of each of those values. Add to those multiple cups of lights including creamy whites, yellows, greens and blues that appear in the sky behind the trees, as well as multiple mid-value cups containing yellows, oranges, reds, blues, greens and violets. But I think all those colour variations is what brings pop and life to the painting, so it is well worth the work. I was thrilled to find some silicone mini-muffin cups at the store, so now I can put the colours that are left over into those, allow them to cool and add the blocks to my collection of colours, rather than having to throw them away.
My son commented that I need to do a series of these, so I think I will take him up on that idea -stay tuned to see more .

Enjoy!
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