One Medium: 6 Techniques

Art prompt for the day: take any medium and use it as many different ways as possible. Lucky for me, I was teaching an encaustic art class today at a friend's studio: Rainbowheart Studio.  Wax + 8 artists x 7 techniques = 56 different ways of looking at encaustic art.

Here's my quick little demo piece, onto which I inlayed cheese cloth, embedded the filter from my broken french press and coffee beans, inlayed words from a newspaper, built up texture using cheesecloth and added squiggles with carbon paper.  And that was just a start.  Wait to you see what we all got up to!

Incising lines: drawing in wax with sharp tools is enhanced when black oilstick is forced into the lines.

Art by Alora

Painting: wax is a wonderful medium to paint with.

Art by Margo

Stencilling: you can use stencils with wax just as you would for paint.

Art by Catriona

Inlaying papers and embedding objects: encasing objects in between layers of wax is one of the claims to fame of using wax.  Today we inlayed or embedded everything from beads, beans, feathers, papers, jewelry, scrabble tiles, puzzle pieces and fabrics.  If you can dream it up, you can encase it in wax.

Art Mirror by Layla

Photo transfers: all it takes is water and a little embossing to transfer photocopies onto your wax.

Here, Zoe and Layla remove the paper from their transfers.

 Shellac and Lacquer Burns: And if all of the above isn't exciting enough for you, you can always light stuff on fire.  Spraying your work with lacquer or shellac and then lighting it on fire leads to some pretty exciting results.

Alora is burning both shellac and lacquer.

And last but not least, have a look at our artist gallery. These are just some of the wonderful pieces created today.

Art by Caroline

featuring: incising, inlaying papers, embedding beads

and silver transfer paper.

Art by Catriona

featuring: painting, stencilling and shellac burn

Art by Layla

featuring: paper inlay and lacquer burn

Art by Margartetta

featuring: incising lines and painting

Art by Margo

featuring: painting, incising lines inlaying paper

Art by Zoe

featuring: painting, transfer paper,

photo transfer, incising, embedded

ostrich feather.

Art by Alora

featuring: incising, paper inlay, painting and embedded coin,

and shellac and lacquer burn

Unfortunately I never got a finished photo of Alora's piece. She continued to fearlessly add elements and burn her piece until it was past time to go.  You'll have to take my word for it but it was truly inspired.

And I was truly inspired by this group of artists today.  Thank you all for coming to my class.  As always, I learned as much from you as you did from me.  Until next time...