This 'N That: Experimenting With It All

I've been busy experimenting with more Photoshop techniques and also with the encaustics. I thought I'd show you a few of my latest pieces. The top photo is called, "The Road Home". It's more of merging the CitraSolv backgrounds and then amping up the Saturation levels and other blending modes to get bold colors. I think there are about 5 different backgrounds merged into this one. I like how the CitraSolv "bubbles" show up in the final version.

This next one is called, "Sisters". I wanted to obscure the vintage photo of the faces and just do some color play. Again, more merging of the backgrounds for a softer backdrop. I then played with blending modes for the sisters to get the bold color and distorted look.

Then I went into an ethereal mode. I wanted to get a misty, ghostly effect into some of the digital pieces. This one is called, "Out of the Mist". There are still several backgrounds that have been merged in this one but very subtle colors and textures were added.

Back to the bold colors and still sticking with the ghostly images, this one is called, "Serenity". You can really see the CitraSolv effects in the backgrounds of this one.

And finally, a new encaustic. This one is called, "Hiding in the Shadows". I started with a canvas panel and covered it with black cardstock. I originally planned on doing something else but that image didn't work out. So I added a portion of a CitraSolv background. There appears to be a person, partly obscured, standing behind a veil or a curtain. I liked the ghostly effects of this. I then added the clear encaustic medium to get the cloudy layers and then splattered on encaustic paints in neon colors. Finally I added a little flowing strip of encaustic paint to the bottom, sort of like a river flowing. Pretty cool effects and a lot of fun learning how to work with the encaustic paints. This piece was made in response to a challenge on the Art From The Heart.ning site. The theme was "In Darkness" and you could use any medium you chose.

So that's what's been going on behind the scenes. I'm expecting some new encaustic paint colors this week so I can expand my color palette.

I'm excited that my brother and sister will be visiting this coming weekend! Now I need to clear a path to the spare room so one of them can sleep there! This will make me put away all of the art supplies and papers that have been migrating to the spare room. ;)

I hope to have some more new pieces to show soon. I've finally de-cluttered the studio space (again) and am happy to say I have a clean work table! I don't know how long that will last, though...