My husband inherited his grandmother’s old cookbook, which is a “Beach Boys” notebook filled with handwritten recipes in Croatian. I fell in love with this book, but was concerned by its poor condition.

Out of fear that this important, historic artifact from my husband’s legacy wouldn’t survive for his children, I decided to reproduce the book. The above image is a glimpse of my efforts at cloning a truly remarkable document. I plan on adding my creative touch to the work, so that not only is it resurrected, but that it lives on . . . as something more than it used to be . . . as a piece of our combined heritage.

I decided to participate in a research project by artist Mia Nolting, who is also a student at PNCA in Portland. I have no idea what she is going to do with these, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s too neat of an idea to pass up and I couldn’t stop myself from filling out the survey with encaustic paints. Don’t you just love the three dimensionality of the red X marks?

I wrapped the little piece in wax paper, taped on a business card and threw it in the mail today. I’m surprised how incredibly satisfying it feels to mail a little artwork to someone who doesn’t even know you.

I think I might do something like this more often. It’s a liberating experience.
If you want to participate, here’s the link.

Pass it forward, if you will.
Cheers,

I’m pleased to introduce another addition to the No More Happy Birthdays series as well as my very first painting in the year 2009.

The three birthday candles are a reference to the lost youth of this woman, who is now seen begging on the side of the road. As her sign describes, she is pregnant and in need of assistance. The first time I saw her, I couldn’t help but think about her family and if they knew about her current circumstances. I wondered what happened to her over the course of her life to bring her to this dire point? What ever happened to “daddy’s little girl” and how will this woman be prepared to raise her own child?

On a side note, she wasn’t the only homeless woman begging on the road. On the direct opposite side of the exact same intersection, was another woman holding a nearly identical sign saying “Pregnant, please help”.

What has happened to all the little girls? Did they all grow up this way?

The new year has started so it is time to get back into the swing of things. I put together a short list of calls for artists, specifically for those who work in the encaustic medium. I hope this inspires you to start applying to more competitions and get cracking! Feel free to leave a post if you know of any other upcoming opportunities for encaustic artists.

R & F Paints
Bedford Gallery
Wax Actual
New Art Group

P.S. The above photo is a sample of my experiments in the art of “properly” melting a birthday candle so it can be transferred and fused onto a canvas. Isn’t encaustic fun?

Ok, folks. Today’s blog posting will be a wee bit short because (drum roll please)… I am submitting my application for the first grad school I am applying to, which I will code name “Grad School A”. Tough code to crack huh?

It is time to get off the computer and run to the post office so that the school receives my package by the Tuesday deadline.

However, I didn’t want to leave you without your daily dose of visual sustenance. Please enjoy the above snapshot of a vintage cigarette ad. I had the pleasure of enjoying this vintage movie clip at the Alamo Drafthouse’s “Henris Rockin New Years Eve Sing-Along”. The best part was when the animation showed it raining cigarettes and children were running around collecting them with big smiles on their faces. Although this shot of the statue of liberty lighting it up runs as a close second.

Enjoy!

Meagan Shein is a New York based artist with an MFA in painting. She has been widely published and exhibited, though information on her current activities has been a bit harder to come by (at least from Austin, Texas). The above image is a representative sample of her style. From her website you can see more artwork from this series. In particular, there are some beautiful images of large, sprawling trees and gas stations against the same haunting blue background. Recent work can also be seen at Sheppard Gallery Online. Doesn’t this remind you of the Prussian blue of cyanotypes?

Since I haven’t seen her work in person, I’m very curious about Meagan’s technique. Is this an image transfer onto paper/wax? Or did she painstakingly draw all of the imagery on paper then cover it with wax? Or perhaps she carved it into a layer of wax on paper and then filled it in with ink?

I’ve been inspired: I’m going to try drawing with ink on wax to see if the ink runs or if wax is actually a good surface for a liquid medium. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know how the experiment goes… maybe it will even turn into another one of my Encaustic 101 Tutorials.

Have an “inspired” day!

I’d also been toying with the idea of a daily blog for some time and am excited to finally implement a new blogging time line: Say hello to “The Daily Drip”! Daily blogging is an intense commitment, therefore I’ve condensed my list of New Year’s resolutions into realistic goals. Here’s a list of my top 10 resolutions for 2009:

1). I pledge to blog daily. The world wide web can now hold me accountable to this promise.

2a). Get accepted to a fine arts grad school. The deadlines for the 5 MFA programs I’m applying to are Jan 6 & 10, Feb 1, 2 & 15.
2b). If not accepted to school: reevaluate, rebound and most importantly… survive. Continue creating and promoting my artwork and consider applying to different programs in 2010. Artists have to get used to rejection, right?

3). Workout. Sort of. Sometimes. Not until after Feb 15 at the very least…

4). Create a minimum of 50 new artworks this year. This includes 4 new series/themes of work and 5 new artist books.

6). Apply to more competitions. Exhibit, exhibit, exhibit!

7). Go to the doctor when I’m sick… not afterwords. Take better care of myself and my family. Use best safety practices in the studio.

8). Take a more active role in the Texas Wax Austin chapter. Educate people by teaching a workshop or giving a demonstration on encaustics.

9). Be myself, undiluted, uninhibited, unreserved, at all times… while still avoiding putting my foot in my mouth and breaking other people’s bowls.

10). My last goal falls under the heading of “networking”. Join more professional artist organizations, make an effort to meet more artists and attend at least one show a month.

There’s no looking back now! Onward!

Pleasant dreams… and happy sailing.

Those in Peril on the Sea. 8 x 10. Encaustic & Mixed Media. © 2008 Haley Nagy.

Keep checking back because we have plans for a collaborative installation sometime in 2009… and this time it won’t be an accident!

The Train Ride. © 2008 Haley Nagy. © Music by Zvonimir Nagy.

Transferring images onto wax is easy! First, prepare your surface with an even layer of encaustic paint or medium. Fuse, fuse and re-fuse until it is nice and flat. (A separate tutorial on creating a smooth encaustic surface is forthcoming…)

Next, grab your photocopy. For the transfer to work, the image must be either a regular photocopy or printed from a laser printer (no inkjet prints). I find that the older the copy machine, the easier it is to transfer the toner to the wax. However, newer copy machines tend to give a better resolution copy, which is good for pictures with intricate detail. If you are lucky, you can find a machine that manages to meet both criteria - not too old, not too new. If your image contains text, don’t forget to reverse the picture with the copy machine otherwise your words will be backwards!

In this example, I only want to transfer part of the picture so I cut out the portion I’m interested in using.

Place the photocopy face down on the wax, preferably while the wax is still slightly warm from fusing.

Firmly burnish the back of the photocopy into the wax with a spoon, taking special care to thoroughly rub all over the bumpy or uneven areas. I find it helpful to cover the photocopy with a layer of wax paper before rubbing it. This prevents me from accidentally ripping apart the cut out with an overzealous swipe of the spoon. It also seems to minimize the severity of my “spoon” marks on the wax. To ensure complete and total burnishing of the entire image, I burnish from left to right, from top to bottom, from corner to corner and vise-versa.

Next, rub the back of the image with a cotton ball filled with acetone. Don’t have acetone on hand? Use a bottle of plain, cheap finger nail polish remover instead. Remember to follow proper safety procedures and work in a well ventilated area (see Venting Your Studio).

Keep soaking the paper until you can start to see the image on the other side.

Continue soaking it with acetone. The paper will start to wrinkle when it has separated from the toner.

At this point, you can start lightly rubbing the paper with your finger and pulling it away from the surface.

Keep rubbing and re-wetting the surface until you can start to see the image. Please note that some artists use water to transfer an image. Although I haven’t tried that method, it seems like you could substitute acetone with water once you’ve reached this step. Since acetone evaporates so quickly, water could help quicken the removal of the paper by keeping it moist longer.

Even when you are being careful, sometimes little holes appear in your image because the toner didn’t completely adhere to the wax, you failed to burnish that particular microscopic spot or you pulled the paper away too quickly. As you practice more encaustic transfers, these holes will happen less frequently. In this case, I’m not overly cautious while removing the paper because I like the look of the holes on this piece.

Don’t worry if you can’t remove every single speck of paper from the wax. These remnants can be “fixed” by lightly fusing the image. The heated wax will absorb the bits of paper, thus making it look almost completely transparent. You can also intentionally (or unintentionally) warp the image on the surface by fusing it too long.

All done! Wasn’t that easy?

Lear Jet Out of Fuel. 8 x 10. Encaustic, oil, image transfer on panel. © 2008 Haley Nagy.

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