Loving Encaustic Painting!

So I couldn't wait to get off of work today and begin my new wax-y adventures! Here is a photo of my home studio set up. It worked pretty well today.

On the left I have 3 acrylic paintings in progress. On the right I have my first encaustic painting I've done solo! Mr. Chase was so great to modify my desk to a sit down/stand up desk. Just push a button to stand or sit!

Here are 3 acrylics in progress and at different stages - the one in the middle is almost complete when I add some antiqueing around the edges...

I didn't have enough tins to heat wax in so the big one is encaustic medium, then I have titanium white, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, cad yellow light, cad red light, and mars black. I melted a few sticks on the griddle today too: burnt umber, sap green, cad green pale, and cobalt turquoise. Still to unwrap: Cobalt Violet Light and Quinacridone Red.

Here is my first encaustic painting! Two koi and a lily pad. It's an 8x8 on a cradled birch panel.

Learnings - Should have just streaked the transparent blue over the fish as the one on the right is too dark - but then, it could be deeper in the water! I am not too happy with the lily pad either - I blew a hole right in the middle of it by being too close with my heat gun!

I love the vibrant colors of the RF encaustic paint - but I won't be able to afford this habit for very long. Everything was supposed to arrive yesterday and when I still had not received my paint, I went online and it had been delayed until next Thursday! NO WAY!

I immediately jumped in the car and  in all this "eclipse" traffic headed for Oregon and went to Blick's as it was the only store still open that sells encaustic. I ended up paying an additional $200 just to get the paint last night - but at least I have it for the weekend. Lesson #1 learned.

Lesson #2 - the wax takes longer to heat up than I thought. I thought maybe a half hour would be good - but it actually took almost an hour.

Lesson #3 - try to make layers thinner. I did a good job overall smoothing out any bubbles, etc. but it seems a lot of wax was used.

Lesson #4 - don't forget to tape the edges! I had gotten half of the first layer on when I remembered and thank goodness I didn't have any drips at that point in time.

Lesson #5 - put more on a single layer if you can. I should have combined a few things, like do the rocks on the bottom of the pond and the fish in the same layer. That would have saved me 2 more layers of encaustic.

Overall I think my first attempt was a success! Not perfect - my husband didn't even know what he was looking at. "Flowers?" um, no! "abstract?" another no! I finally had to tell him.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy my journey into wax. It is so much fun. Linda Robertson @ lindarobertsonarts.com would be so proud. :-)