Everything You Need to Know About Encaustic Photography

Painting photographs with encaustic opens upwards another whole earth of possibilities! Photographers can take their art to a new level calculation more interest and texture to their pictures.

"Photographers are increasingly discovering the potential of combining photography and wax. Given the importance of light in photography, it seems a natural marriage, since wax refracts light in unique ways and can add together an otherworldly quality to photographs."

Lissa Rankin
ENCAUSTIC ART The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art with Wax

I've read about photo encaustic and I understood the process, just I hadn't tried it before. This by weekend I had the opportunity to attempt my paw at photo encaustic at a workshop with Tania Willems.

How to Paint with Encaustic on Photographs:

The photo encaustic procedure involves printing photographs on newspaper and adhering the paper to a substrate creating a paper basis. The artist will and then paint with encaustic on top of the photograph.

1. Ready your photograph

Before you begin painting photographs, you tin can enhance the image with photoshop or a photo editing app before you print them. You may wish to add together a photo filter to give the image a more than painterly quality. Tania showed us some fun apps on her iPad.

2. Print your photo

Cull paper that is heavy, matte, not-glossy and absorptive. Tania recommended 80lb paper. You lot can use your computer printer or take it printed at a print store. The image needs to exist a scrap larger than the panel.

iii. Adhere the photograph to the panel

Positionable Mounting Adhesive by 3M will permit you to position your photo exactly where you want it on the console and best of all, y'all won't have to await for the adhesive to dry! When y'all're happy with your positioning, place a embrace sheet over the epitome and thoroughly burnish the photo to gear up the adhesive in identify. It is available in fifty-foot rolls and a multifariousness of widths.

If you have an acrylic gel medium you tin can use that instead. Some artists swear by YES! paste but I understand that it isn't considered archival in boiling atmospheric condition. If y'all're using acrylic gel medium, you lot'll demand to use a brayer to smooth out any air bubbles, and y'all will demand to put the panel under some heavy books and leave it for at to the lowest degree 12 hours until it is completely dry.

iv. Trim the photograph to the size of your console

Now, turn the panel face down on a clean cutting lath and with an Exacto knife trim the photo to the size of the panel and use a piece of sandpaper to smooth the edges.

5. Tape the sides of your console

Think about how you desire to terminate the edges of your console before you start to paint. Painter's tape will protect the edges from drips of wax then they will be clean when you are ready to stop them.

6. Brainstorm painting the photograph with encaustic medium

• Brush on medium. Using a natural bristle brush, apply 2-3 layers of encaustic medium.
• Fuse. Use a gentle embossing heat gun in conjunction with an iron to fuse each layer. A blow torch or powerful heat gun isn't advisable. You don't desire to fuse as well much. The heat will make the wax cloudy, stop and let it cool down—more estrus is not going to arrive less cloudy.
• Scrape. Now utilise a razor blade or pottery tool to gently scrape off a sparse layer of medium and pull up areas of the prototype that you want to bring into focus. Be careful not to scrape down likewise far.

7. Work on the surface of the photo

You can use a variety of encaustic techniques and drawing products on top of the wax to enhance your photo.

• Pan Pastels are the outset matter that comes to mind. They are ideal for photograph encaustic!
• Water Soluble Wax Pastels are besides terrific hither. Caran d'ache Neocolors can be used wet or dry forwatercolour effects. Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels are less expensive and they piece of work very well likewise. Try using Neocolors wet and Reeves dry. Gently fuse the wax pastel with an embossing heat gun.
• Foil transfer papers, Republic of india ink, charcoal,
• the encaustic stylus
• photocopy transfer – I added words in the water from a verse form that my husband published based on this photograph
• collage and more

8. Remove the tape and finish the edges

End the edges of your panel. I usually pigment the edges with black acrylic paint and put it in a overnice floater frame.

nine. Buff the painting

You tin buff your painting to reduce whatever cloudiness and make it shine. Yous'll demand to look until the wax has cooled and cured. Don't exercise this when it is however warm or just newly completed. Apply a warm paw, a clean and lint-free cloth or a nylon stocking.

Learning nearly painting photographs

I had read most this process and was itching to try it. The encaustic workshop with Tania Willems was a great style to commencement painting on photographs with encaustic. The studio was well equipped with a wide range of supplies nosotros might want to try.

The big learning for me was about fusing. When the wax was hot, it was beautiful, but as it started to cool, it became cloudy. If I had been on my ain I would have continued to fuse. Tania stopped me and told me that the heat was causing the wax to become cloudy and that I needed to scrape off the top layer of wax with a razor bract.

Have something to add?

I would love to hear from you. Please add a comment beneath about your experience with photo encaustic.

Add depth, texture & involvement to photographs with encaustic painting Click To Tweet

• Near the Author
• Latest Posts

• Comparing Irons for Encaustic Painting - Nov 10, 2021
• How to print a big epitome onto multiple pages - June 12, 2021
• Artist Conversation with Andrea Bird - May 23, 2021
• An Easier Encaustic Photo Transfer: The Parchment Paper Method - April 5, 2021
• How to Repossess Wax-covered Boards - March 9, 2021
• Bee Colony Collaboration | Artist Conversation with Ava Roth - March ii, 2021
• Make Two—At least | Work on Multiple Paintings at a Time - February 23, 2021
• When it'south Hard to Make Art | Finding Momentum - February viii, 2021
• Aye, You Tin can Paint with Encaustic on Plexiglass - December 13, 2020
• How to Make and Paint Encaustic Gesso - June 8, 2020

View All Posts

mitchellnortrinter.blogspot.com

Source: https://allthingsencaustic.com/painting-photographs/

Share this post