Thursday, June 4, 2009

some new work

I'm messing around with two different groups of imagery just now. I expect they will come together in the future but for the moment they are linked in saturating works on paper with wax working on a hot box. The piece above, 3 at sunset at Wingaersheek, is actually multiple digital images merged in Photoshop, printed in Rives BFK and then completely saturated with encaustic medium. That last step is important because it renders everything translucent. The image above is a scan rather than a photograph - scanning it really helps capture the unique quality of translucency brought with the wax.

This piece is a mix of physical and digital steps. There are actually two separate pieces combined into one. I've been working with a variety of kozo papers on my hot box incorporating encaustic, graphite, oil pastel and multiple layers of paper. They're not really monoprints because I rework into the pieces after making an initial monoprint layer. This piece has two separate finished pieces which I scanned and then combined and further manipulated in Photoshop. So virtual layers, physical layers and so forth.

This is one of the component parts of the upper piece but manipulated further on its own in Photoshop. I like the recursiveness of this technique. I'm not sure where it's going to take me or how I will end up integrated my more typical digital imagery with this technique - am still exploring those issues. I find the painterly quality of the technique compelling as well as the ease of incorporating multiple layers and elements.

I started working with encaustic on paper on a heated surface in a big way after seeing Paula Roland demo her monoprint technique at last year's Encaustic Conference. It lets me incorporate a way of working I used to use intensively with acrylic on paper years ago with the additional seductive translucence and texture of wax. I started doing a lot of this partly also as a teaching tool and as a set of finger exercises or etudes to borrow from music - a way to get past being somewhat blocked and not sure where to go with my work. Just now the exploration is as much of an end as the finished piece and most won't be seen by anyone else but that's ok.

1 comment:

lynda cole said...

Cool Leslie. I love the Wingaersheek image for obvious reasons but also for the simple composition.
Lynda