52 Weeks of Art: Week 35

Week 35: Encaustic

Welcome to week 35 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

          This week we did some encaustic painting. What is encaustic? It's hot wax painting. It's a mix of beeswax, resin, and pigment that gets used as paint. You can buy some already made encaustic paint, or you can make your own. Since encaustic paint isn't really budget friendly, we decided to make our own paint. Making your own is pretty simple. You just need beeswax, damar resin, and pigment.

    Here's the beeswax. It came in little pellets. I like the little pellets, they melt quickly.

     Here's the damar resin. It comes in these crystals. It's a tree resin, so it's kind of on the sticky side. The crystals are added to the melted beeswax. It's used as a wax hardener. I'm sure it serves some other purposes, I'm no encasutic painting expert.

    I didn't get any pictures of the whole batch of "paint" I made. I melted the wax and resin in a larger container and portioned it out into smaller containers to color. I added some pigment to small portions and mixed it up with some popsicle sticks. 

    Now for the painting part. Wow. This was not easy. They make some fancy tools for painting. We did not get these fancy tools. The painting tools are heated. They probably would have made painting so much easier. Trying to paint with hot wax on a cold surface doesn't work out so great. The wax hardens almost instantly. So, the solution was to put our canvas - okay, it was just a block of MDF - right on the griddle. After the block heated up it was much easier to paint. It wasn't easy, but it was easier.

    Here's a close up of the painting I made. I like the sort of 3D effect the wax creates. 

     And here's the final product. I'm not so sure this photo turned out so great, but it is what it is.

On to rating encaustic...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for encaustic, my rating is: 12

Ease of use: 3

 Hot wax isn't the easiest of mediums to use. It got easier the more I used it, but there is definitely a learning curve.

Affordability: 1

  Buying all the supplies for this medium was not cheap. I spent a little over $80 for supplies. That was the cheaper option of making my own paint, too. Yeah, not really affordable.

Accessibility: 4

     Buying the supplies - beeswax, resin, and pigment - was pretty easy. I just purchased everything online and had no problems finding what I needed.

Fun to Use: 4

Before we decided to put the MDF right on the griddle I thought there was no way I was ever going to finish this. AFTER putting the MDF on the griddle, I think I really enjoyed this medium. I really think this is something I'm going to try again. Maybe I'll even invest in getting those fancy tools I was talking about.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 34

Week 34: Wood Burning

Welcome to week 34 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     We are now about 2/3 of the way through out 52 week art adventure. Can you believe it? Week 34! That means we have now tried out 34 different mediums. Wow. When I first thought of doing this crazy adventure, I didn't even think I could find enough mediums to last a whole year. Now? Now I'm always finding new mediums and thinking, "why didn't I add that to the list?" One of the first mediums I added was wood burning. I have been looking forward to doing this one for a weeks now. 34 weeks, actually.

     Wood burning, or pyrography, is made using a heated metal tip that you burn the wood with. I have never done this before, but I was super excited to try it. I went to Amazon, because why not, and I ordered myself a basic wood burning kit. It included several different tips to use to create different shapes. It even has some basic shaped tips like hearts, circles, etc. So many different things to explore.

      My amazing brother-in-law, Rebecca's husband, cut different pieces of wood for us to use. Now, I'm no wood expert, but I do know that we had some MDF and maybe some plywood? I'm not sure. We started practicing on the MDF, thinking it would work really well because it's so smooth. Wrong. It didn't work great at all. Maybe it's just because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I really struggled with getting a smooth line on the MDF. Next we tried the maybe-plywood. I know that it was at least a real piece of wood. Worked so much better. Phew. If it didn't work, I was worried I was really going to fail at this project. I mean, kids do this sort of thing at camp. At least my kid did. So, if kids can do it, I should be able to do it.

     The tool goes up to 450 degrees. That's hot. Like burn your skin off hot. Why kids are allowed to do this, at camp no less, I have no idea. I was so worried the whole time that I was going to burn myself. Luckily, no injuries occurred. Phew. I did have to eventually stop because the tool was getting too hot to hold, even on the part of the handle that was supposedly safe to hold.

     I will say, if you are going to try pyrography - which is just fun to say - you should do it in a well ventilated area. I kept breathing in the smoke because I had my head right over my project so I could see what I was doing. Also, be warned, you will smell like you've been sitting around a campfire.

     Even thought the whole kit came with multiple tips, if I wanted to try out a different tip, I had to wait for it to completely cool off before changing the tips. Then I'd have to wait for it to heat up again. It actually heated up and cooled down a lot quicker than I expected, but it was still about 15 minutes from cooling off to heating back up again. So, switching out tips is really not quick. If you were going to make something that required the use of several different tips, it's going to take you a while.

     Now, I do not have any progress shots because I was so worried about burning myself on the stupid tool I completely forgot to take pictures. Yeah, I know, that happens all the time. So, here's my attempt at pyrography:

 

On to rating wood burning...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for wood burning, my rating is: 16

Ease of use: 3

 I don't think that using the tool was easy, but after using it for a while I found it easier to use.

Affordability: 4

  Amazon sells a whole variety of wood burning kits. You can easily get some for $35 or less.

Accessibility: 5

     You can easily get a wood burning kit online. Arts and crafts stores sell them. Walmart has them. Even Harbor Freight has one. Yeah, they are easy to find.

Fun to Use: 4

At first I didn't think it was all that fun when I was trying to use the MDF. Once I switched to using the maybe-plywood it became must more enjoyable.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 33

Week 33: Thread Painting

Welcome to week 33 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     We've got some more fiber art this week. This time it's thread painting. What is thread painting? It's also called needle painting, and it uses a series of long and short stitches in various colors to create a painting-like masterpiece. Thread painting isn't embroidery. It's similar in that it uses fabric, needle, and thread. but embroidery uses more stitches. Thread painting uses just straight stitches - long and short.

     Here's some examples of some amazing thread painted art:

Cayce Zavaglia is amazingly talented. You can see some of her work here.

Victoria Matthewson is another incredibly talented artist. You can see her stuff here. 

Nicole O'laughlin is also extremely talented. You can see her work here.

    All of these ladies are so incredible. I follow them all on Instagram and I am constantly amazed with their talent. I knew that I wouldn't be able to create anything of their caliber this week, but I was going to try my best.

     I pulled out all my supplies and got to work.

This is like 2 hours of work.

Here's another hourish of work.

Another six hours of work.

More hours worth of work.

I stopped counting the hours by this point.

It looks like a little bit of something now.

Getting there! This took about 5 hours. 

I added some more trees and leaves.

     Well, I think this is the first time I haven't been able to finish a medium in a week. I thought I could make it. The cross stitch took me about 40ish hours or something, so I thought I could get this done. But, I couldn't. It's soooo close, though. I need to finish up the trees and add some clouds. Hopefully I will be able to update this soon with the finished piece. I even gave myself some extra time to try and finish it, it jut wasn't going to happen.

      If anyone ever says that tiny art is faster and easier to do than something larger - don't believe them! Tiny art is just as time consuming and difficult as larger scale art. In fact, some tiny art is even more difficult!  

     

   

On to rating thread painting...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for thread painting, my rating is: 17

Ease of use: 4

 Alright, if you can stitch at all, you can do thread painting. However, that doesn't mean you'll be able to achieve photo realistic quality.

Affordability: 5

  Thread costs $0.60-$0.80 for a skein. Depending on how many colors you use, thread painting isn't going to cost you too much. Also, you can stitch a lot with one skein.

Accessibility: 5

     You can get some thread from any arts and crafts store. Or online. I prefer to use the DMC brand of embroidery floss, but you can use whatever you like.

Fun to Use: 3

 Thread painting was fun and frustrating. I like seeing how all these tiny little stitches turn into a complete picture. I don't like how long it takes to finish.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!