LA & Graffiti Working Ideas
Posted on January 27th, 2010
Here I am in LA visiting and getting new ideas for my graffiti series of paintings. I love this city and the ideas for works I see everywhere. The city having many “tagged” buildings by gangs makes it very easy getting my creative juices flowing on the subject. This building downtown is a great example for a composition. The colors and shapes on the surface of this building I shot downtown seems perfect to me for my mixed media painting approach. There is no visual written graffiti on the building but plenty of visual stimulation in the colors and textures for me to add a tag myself in the finished work. I will be adding more images here that spark my imagination as a starting point for a great series of paintings.
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Bob’s Big Boy LA
Posted on January 6th, 2010
I am excited to introduce my newest work combining the use of encaustics and collage. This past summer I attended a three day workshop at R&F Encaustics in Kingston, NY to learn about using wax in my work. I am always looking for ways to improve my work. I visit my daughter and the LA Art Fair every year and have seen encaustic as a medium used by artists there. Buffalo, NY has very few artists here using wax. Why, I do not understand, but plan with this series to introduce encaustics to our city. I started out purchasing the tools needed to get started with this process. The two most important tools are a aluminum hot palette and a electric skillet. The palette and skillet I purchased from Target. The palette you use for keeping your mixed colors in metal cups and your composition board warm. Sticks of colored wax, refined bleached beeswax, brushes, and boards can all be purchased from R&F Encaustics or many art supply stores online. You also will need a Wagner Hot Gun and a tacking iron which can be purchased at hardware stores. You began with the set up of all your tools. The grill and skillet must have a temperature gauge on it and both kept at 200 degrees. This temperature must be kept through the work process at all times to end up with the encaustic adhering to the board. I began this piece by having a work station set up on a folded table in my studio. This is a lot of preparation before you began to paint. I get the skillet and hot plate plugged in and up to 200 degrees first then put metal cups(R&F) on the skillet and part of a color stick in the cup beginning to create a color palette. I put my encaustic gessoed panel prepared ahead of time, (optional but like a white ground to work on), on the hot plate and heat it up. When you apply wax you must do a process called fusing and this is done by adding a clear layer of wax so that it bonds with the preceding layer. This is where the heat gun and tacking iron comes in that was listed in my materials at the beginning of this blog. I start by applying a clear coat of wax to the gessoed board then fusing with the gun or iron trying not to overlap your strokes to insure a even surface to work on. I will continue with photos of this process tomorrow. Questions? please leave them.