Art 210: Encaustic Painting

Wow, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed my painting class.  To put it simply, I think it will forever change the way I interpret, study, marvel and admire fine paintings.  

The class, 'Intro to Painting', is primarily a study of materials and methods of creating a painting.  We began by studying pigments: ancient earth colors and modern manufacture elements.  In this discussion it is hard not to also examine the cultural and geographic influences on painting processes and how they developed alongside each other.  We began by looking at cave paintings, discussing content and all the environmental conditions that influenced them.  Really intriguing works, and very mysterious.

The oldest process that we replicated was that of encaustic painting, which was used by the Egyptians on their tombs, or coffins (most notably the 'Fayum mummy portraits').  Encaustic painting is created by adding pigment to hot wax.  So that is what we did in class:  heated beeswax on a pancake griddle, added our earth pigments, and created a painting with those basic elements.   

We each researched a Fayum mummy portrait and reproduced it on a wooded board.  These painting were often constructed in layers, the first being an 'underpainting' which was a value study of the subject.  Color is added in the second layer of wax.  Check it out:  I like the value study more, color ruined it for me.  

This is the image I chose to replicate.  Answer a longstanding debate we've been having in class: is this a male or female?

I liked the value study, and we spent alot of class time on it.  The wax was really difficult to work with:  it caked up quickly.  And before you added a color (of hot wax) to your brush it was best to know where it was going - you have about 3 seconds to work before the wax dries on your brush.

Then we added color to the process... which basically requires you to redo all the work you did the first time!  Well, I'm not a fan of redoing work I already like... so I gave it a very desaturated interpretation of the original, which was fine, the idea was to experience the process and explore the medium.

It's kind of haunting, isn't it?  And really, is it a boy or girl???