Sisters: A Peek At Faux Encaustics

The background in this piece is my first attempt at trying the "faux encaustic" technique from the workshop I'm taking. I decided to enhance it with some digital imagery from a Degas painting and the word love.

My sister had to put her 16 year old cat to sleep today. I was so sad after talking with her. I know what she's going through; I had to do the same for my little guy just after he turned 20 yrs old. After we talked, I got to thinking about when we were growing up and how she would follow me around trying to do whatever I was doing. All of these emotions were going through my head when I finished this first canvas today. I was looking for something to enhance it and when I looked in my files I came across the Degas painting that brought those memories back. So I took the image of the two girls and put them into my background.

Here is the canvas alone:

The technique is really cool. I didn't have the correct gel medium for one of the steps and had to use a soft gel gloss (instead of semi-gloss). This little town doesn't have much in way of art supplies so I'll have to stock up from Dick Blick. I went ahead and used the gloss on the other four canvasses, too, since these are only 5" x 5" samples used just to try the technique. I'll definitely do bigger canvasses when I get the correct supplies.

I did vary my technique just a little bit. The teacher used charcoal and graphite pencils to doodle on one layer. I tried that with some of the canvasses but wasn't thrilled with my results. No problem; you just cover them up in the next layer if you don't like them. I didn't repeat that step later in the process and just kept with what I had already done.

This is a great workshop and can be found at Creative Workshops (see side link). The teacher is Jodi Ohl and she's really thorough and fun to watch. I'm loving the possibilities with this technique!

I'll post the rest of the canvasses after I do the final step on them. I decided to jump in and finish one today. I wanted to make a little something for my sis, hoping it would at least make her feel loved. :)