Harmonious Dyad

I made more progress this weekend and began the layers of wax which have colors. To the left I put one layer of naples yellow wax, one layer of mixed cadium yellow and titanium white waxes, and then a third layer of naples yellow wax again. You can't see it from the photo (which I took out in the sun, by the way, so that's just a shadow you see...), but up close you can now see hints of whisps of the cadium yellow and the titanium white.

Between each layer I took a razor blade and scraped back the wax until there a relatively smooth surface and then I fused that layer with the heat gun and then went on to the next layer. Encaustics are a pretty process-intensive art form.

To the right, I have a very pastel hue of violet. One layer of that, one layer of titanium white and a third layer of the violet again. Scraped smooth with a razor between each layer and each layer fused with the heat gun.

You can see more clearly now how the wax drips on the frame section and that is why painters tape on all of the black frame was a good preventative move.

The white column in the middle is not really white - it is actually also painters tape, just keeping the other colors from bleeding into that space, which is where I'll put a third color.

Got a blister on my right thumb from working the razor blade too intently...I might have to come up with another way to hold that thing. But I made enough progress for today.

Why is this post titled Harmonious Dyad? Because yellow and violet make up one of the complementary or harmonious "sets" of colors on the color wheel. I'm playing with very varied hues of those colors and it was really not my intent to pick a harmonious dyad, but it just came out that way. My next color on the piece will not form a harmonious tetrad, so we'll just have to see how it looks as it proceeds.

I was selected to serve on a criminal trial case this coming up week, so I don't expect to get back to doing art until that is over with. Civic duty and all...

Technorati tags: art , painting , encaustic art , encaustics