Last Week In The Studio - Part 1: August 17, 2014

In an effort to get myself to make regular posts, I'm going to try posting weekly reports on what's happening in my studio. I plan to call the posts "LAST WEEK IN THE STUDIO".  I'm not sure if I can keep it up, but here's #1 in what I hope will be a series. This one is playing catch up from the week before last. I'll post Part 2 this weekend.

WHERE WAS i?
At the beginning of July, right after I finished the work for my Arden Gallery show, I began making two orange and blue panels for another show (to be announced) later in the year. Each panel was 48" H x 36" W. There were four main colors: light blue, medium blue, dark blue and orange. (As I realized afterwards, these are colors that we usually see in the sky everyday so they have a familiar feeling.)  I also used some copper pieces to add highlights. (By the way, you can click on the photos to make them even bigger.)

Here are the first two panels before their finishing coat of encaustic paint.

I made pretty basic geometric layouts on each of them and thought I was way ahead of schedule, but I ran into trouble after I painted the final coat of encaustic on the first panel.

UH-OH!
When I painted the first panel, I used encaustic paint that was pretty much the same color as that of the individual elements. This resulted in the elements losing their individual importance and sort of visually sinking into a block of color. I did not like it. My motto is more: "Gritty, not Pretty," and this was too pretty and static looking for me. So my choice was either to paint the second panel with the same colors or to paint it all one color and give up the idea of showing the two panels together. After some agonizing and kicking myself, I chose the second course.

Here are the first two painted panels, with the four different encaustic colors on the left and the one
dark blue paint on the right. You can see how the elements are more distinct on the right panel.

This was where I left off last week. I had one completed panel and had to make another one to go with it.

This piece was finished except for fusing the final coat of encaustic and giving a final coat of paint to the sides. However, it did not stay that way, as you will see in the next blog post.

To be continued...