I’ve always liked the process of creating artwork. I was first drawn to printmaking when I started to take my work a little more seriously. I wasn’t very confident in my creative talent but I knew I could learn the processes required to make certain types of art, like printmaking, photography and alternative photo processes. I loved printmaking and prints I created were some of the first artwork I ever showed in public. Etching, lithograph, silk screen, colograph, and monoprinting all had there own particular look, and to become really proficient in any of them took, experience and attention to the detail of the process.
Donald Sultan is a well known artist who has created series of fairly simply images that required a great deal of material and construction technique. Below is one of his signature paintings. Materials consist enamel, tar and spackle on tile over masonite. Why would he choose such difficult materials when oil paint, acrylic or watercolors would have produced a similar result? First of all, I guess it’s the artist’s choice. Secondly, I suppose there is a certain amount of poetic irony putting a lot more work than is necessary to develop a simple idea. The amount of work an artist performs does matter! You have to remember, that any piece of art from an accompolished artist, even if it took him 15 mins to create, is the result of years of training, trial and error, skill development and application of knowledge from practice.
I’ve always like working with encaustic medium because of it’s versatility, the tactile experience of melting, coloring, applying and altering the encaustic wax medium. It’s mostly beeswax traditionally, so painting within it smells quite good, and the paintings themselves continue to have that slightly sweet incense fragrance characteristic of beeswax.
My latest piece uses text. the text was planned and laid out on the computer. A stencil was then made from the computer plan by hand. The stencil was then used to spray paint the rows of letter on a black encaustic background. I am now in the process of carving out the painted letters. The final step will be to rub the painting with paint similar to inking an etching plate.
Why do this? It’s going to look like the surface of an etching plate after inking and before printing. Except, apart for the use of the stencil, it has nothing to do with printmaking.
Title Yellows April 12 2008 Work Date 2008 Medium enamel, tar and spackle on tile over masonite Size h: 12 x w: 12 in / h: 30.48 x w: 30.48 cm