3/52 Bird a week - Love bird

I did an encaustics class with my mum this week.  You'll see the first painting I did in an earlier blog post but just before the end of the class, I asked the teacher about adding metal leaf to the paintings.  She had some aluminum leaf and so I quickly use the last few minutes we had to make my bird for this week.

Love Bird

The lime green is the beeswax with pigment and resin which I applied in a few layers.  I fused each layer and then scraped it flat with a razor blade.

I asked the teacher if I could cut up the metal leaf - which was actually aluminum.  She said she had only ever applied it whole - as a square on the backing material.  I had nothing to lose, so decided to cut out shapes of aluminum leaf and apply it to the solid green wax.

To do this, I had to warm the wax a little, apply the leaf and press/brayer. Then you add water and gently rub off the backing sheet. It worked just fine with the shapes of metal leaf - no problem at all. I then fused the leaf to the wax and over-fused the birdie to try and get a crackle effect in the metal to indicate a feathery feel. The result is:  Love bird or I love birds or ???

If you are part of the bird a week challenge, please add you link below to this week's photo or blog post.  If you want to join in our challenge, please visit the flickr group for more info. You can join at any time.

The poppies blow.....

Here is the first picture I did in yesterday's encaustics class.  I've entitled it "the poppies blow" which is a phrase from the famous "In Flanders Field" poem.

What doesn't really show up in the photo but was my idea behind the piece is that the amount of texture increases as you come down the picture. So the sky has no texture, the green fields increase in texture and then the corn field with poppies has the most texture in the wax. 

It was created with beeswax, pigment and resin using some over-fusing for the sky to create a blend of colors then minimal fusing for the highly textured areas.

I also rubbed some oil paint into the corn field area to give a little more depth to the texture.

It taught me a lot; I got to try different techniques so was happy with it as a sampler.

My mum's first encaustic was entitled "Sun Rise". Hers seems more watercolor in style to me and she did some removing of wax and scratching in the wax for the trees, and then rubbed in some oil paints to highlight the branches etc.

In our last few minutes of the class we both also tried applying aluminum leaf to the wax. Here is mum's and she also applied graphite:

 

I'll show my aluminum leaf painting on Friday for my "bird a week" challenge - although you can get a glimpse here, in a photo of me and my mum.  It was great class to share together.