Quick Encaustics - Using photographs
- orangeinkpot
- Nov 13
- 2 min read
September ended up being a very busy month: new commitments coming up, while all my work was tied up in Nothants & Rutland Open Studio, meant I had a shortfall of recent work
As we were traveling in August, the only means I had for creating anything was with my camera. I am not prepared to exhibit my photographs currently in a physical format, so with the need to produce some work for both the Harborough Artists Cluster Annual exhibition and submit entries to the Northampton Town & County Annual Open Show, I decided to try and experiment with transferring my photographs into encaustic paintings.
The process of transferring an image to the hot wax, involves fusing the laser burnt ash of the paper and then dissolving the paper. (see post https://www.clareart.co.uk/post/world-resources_1). This process therefore works best with a laser print.... I rely on the (not so) local photocopying service for this. Being in a rush therefore I tried to get away with an inkjet image... which can work, but essentially what you're doing is leaving a very thin layer of paper in the wax. This has some interesting effects: you can get a nice furry texture from the paper, you can totally destroy the image by rubbing/ dissolving the whole image off and as I discovered, when transferring to canvas and not board, it is particularly hard to transfer as you can not apply enough pressure. However what you do get with ink jet that you don't with laser, is a lovely spectrum of purples and greens hidden in the black ink.
Both of the images were further manipulated with pastels fused in, wax moved about, etc. The mini is at 90 degrees, anticlockwise and both are mirror images of the original photograph (below). But generally I was pleased with what, I guiltily feel is speed art. Drawing in encaustic is incredibly painful due to both the thickness of line created when working directly into the wax and also the ease of destruction when fusing the next layer,
But it seems a good way of using my photograph library, where often what one wants to capture doesn't come out in the final photograph. Digital manipulation feels so ever present in the world, by using the wax I can now use my photographs and incorporate a very tactile texture.
