Monday, March 28, 2011

Buffing and Such: Last week in the studio.

It's that time of the week again, Monday! I'm fresh eyed and bushy tailed and looking forward to another productive week in the studio. So here's what I got up to last week.

I adding some coloured wax to the background to 'My Prince Charming' and did a little bit more detailing on 'Fish Whispers' (image below). I like how the pink comes through the blue on the background of prince charming.


I also got a lambs wool polishing attachment for my drill to buff the wax to a sheen. I coated a layer on un-coloured encaustic medium over my 'Fish Whispers' painting and that when well, I then decided to put a second coat of wax on and just when I thought I was getting used to working with encaustic, I stuffed up the fusing and had to do a lot of repainting. I managed to bring the painting back and then gave buffing a go.





Also last week, thanks to Pinterest, I came across the images of Hendrik Kerstens, he reference dutch portraiture in his images. He is so clever, his work is classic, yet original, something I'm striving for with my art practice. At first I thought they were oil paintings, what about you, did you?





Kerstens said, “One day Paula came back from horseback riding. She took off her cap and I was struck by the image of her hair held together by a hair-net. It reminded me of the portraits by the Dutch masters and I portrayed her in that fashion. After that I started to do more portraits in which I refer to the paintings of that era. The thing that fascinates me in particular is the way a seventeenth-century painting is seen as a surface which can be read as a description of everyday life as opposed to the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, which usually tell a story. Northern European painting relies much more on craftsmanship and the perfect rendition of the subject. In this, the use of light is instrumental.”

Image and words sourced from Beautylabny's blog.





Some link love:

Basic Encaustics Techniques
http://encausticartist.com/general/encaustic-basics/

 The Collective Store on Bris Style's Blog
http://brisstyle.blogspot.com/2011/03/shop-handmade-collective-store.html

I was mentioned on Niceties Blog
http://www.niceties.co.nz/2011/03/tracey-potter.html


Wishing everyone a productive week!



Come visit me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tracey.potter.artist

4 comments:

  1. Looks like you've been busy Miss! :)
    Hendrik Kerstens photos are interesting. The 'Napkin' one (bottom left) looks like an oil painting.

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  2. What did you think of buffing with the drill attachment? I haven’t given that a go. I was polishing with a soft cloth, but found I often got lots of tiny little scratches. I now mostly just buff with my fingers or the side of my hand in little circular motions. It seems to work well and makes it really shiny, but is very labour intensive –(and will be more so as my work gets larger).

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  3. Jaz, you know me, I like to keep busy :) The napkin photo is the first image I saw of Kerstens work, it really captivated me.

    Kylie, buffing using the lamb wool drill attachment is great,it leaves the surface super shinny. I did find that the surface needs to be smooth/flat for best results, if it is all bumpy only the highest wax surface gets buffed, leaving the lower areas duller. A smooth surface can be achieved by adding a layer of encaustic medium using a goat hair 'hake' brush, which I am still perfecting (I stuffed up the fusing and had to back track). It's early days for me, but I would recommend giving it a go, I really like the finish the lambs wool buffing gives.

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  4. I shall have to get myself a lambs wool buffer then!

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