Encaustics and Digital Prints

Encaustics create a wonderful companion medium for digital prints.  Last week I finished a page for my  Forest Book (see my KathyAnne Art post) constructed of digital prints on lutradur, melted and layered with encaustic pieces that have a base of paper clay with an assortment of digital prints and other textures. 

The process of using digital prints with encaustic has inspired me to create small studies combining textures, digital prints and paper clay with other textural elements in the wax.  In using one of my paper clay bases, I am able to have a foundation that flows and is more organic than flat. There is something beautiful going on with the combination of these surfaces which leads me to continue to pursue their partnership.  Here are a few of the results and a few comments on construction.  Later this week I will post additional pieces.  

Digitally printed water color paper, torn and layered.  encaustic, the grid is in the clay and the wax is melts into the grid texture.

Detail

The 2 pieces just above have digitally printed lutradur layered with encaustic.  The top piece uses  dyed cheesecloth on the paper clay base and the one below has a lace paper digital print on the paper clay under the lutradur pieces.

Detail of second lutradur piece

This piece is on a paper clay piece that is dyed before firing.  The digital print is on silk threaded paper and the print is on both sides of the paper before it is torn and layered with the wax.

Details

Paper Clay Book Firing

My studio is awash with in process artwork.  The encaustic/ lutradur page posted last week is in it's final stages and hopefully tomorrow will see that finished.  That page will be added to my Forest Book containing the 2 feet by 4 feet pages.  The opposite side of the encaustic/lutradur page is being finished at the same time.  Several small encaustic pieces using paper clay as a base are also in the works. Those encaustics will appear in my next post.

When you fire books covered in clay slip, you are rewarded with some amazing textures. The first pieces are from a paperback that I cut in half before coating and firing.  The bottom clay piece is a composition notebook that I worked slip through and then fired with a base that ended up cracking in the kiln.  At this point these clay pieces are destined to be used with encaustics.  Still working with small studies to get a feel for where I want this to go.  For now you can see the way I am carefully pulling the fired books apart to get to all the textures hidden in the inside.  They are vey fragile and would never be able to be shipped anywhere in their present state, so combining them with encaustics will give the pieces stability. Now it remains to be seen how long it will take me to find my way through this part of the process.  Once I create some finished pieces I will post them here.

paperback book piece and detail

Fired composition notebook-base cracked in firing

Composition book pulled apart and turned over to check out the textures

Details of inside textures

Building Encaustic Texture

My Forest Book Series is all about building the textures of the forests.  Actually all my work wraps around developing textures in every way imaginable.  This time the lutradur is the base of my page and the elements in the textures of the printed and melted lutradur are encaustics.  In working with these small encaustic elements I include around 5 layers.  The bottom is metal screen, on top of that is dyed and frayed burlap, over that is a piece of paper clay, then little layers of threads from burlap, waxed linen thread, digital prints on various surfaces and of course the wax of the encaustics throughout.  This process is really inspiring and I find myself looking for other ways to use encaustics on my pages.

Here are some detail shots of the piece in construction.  The metal frame of the page has an inset of hardware cloth wired to the inside of the frame.  The lutradur lays on top with the encaustic pieces starting to be assembled to secure the layers to the hardware cloth.  When the page is finished, I will post it on my KathyAnne Art blog hopefully by the weekend if all goes well.

Kauri Trees- Bark and Pattern

One of my favorite places in the world is the Waipoua Forest on the north island of New Zealand.  The Kauri trees surrounded by the forest are amazingly textural and their environment is magnificent.  My first view of the mighty Kauri changed the direction of my art.  My pictures taken in the forest have influenced my work since then.  Depicted here are pics from the forest and the patterns they inspired.

Mixing it Up

Mixing up textures creates amazing surfaces.  These detail pics show a variety of digital prints and other elements.  Included in the textures are: digital print on lutrudur, cheesecloth skin, canvas and silk.
Other materials: wire, recycled art quilts, dyed burlap, dyed canvas, crocheted hemp. piece fabric, dyed cheesecloth and denim. The fabrics are cut and assembled through the squares of 1/2" grid hardware cloth. The pieces are drawn through the mesh the way you would latch hook yarn to a canvas without using a latch hook.

Embellishing Metal Mesh

New projects, new year, new ideas.  Working on creating some workshops with alternative surfaces, I was drawn to do some studies with metal mesh this week.  Imagining the possibilities has opened some doors for combing this surface in new ways with my digital prints.  Here are some detail shots of the studies.

Lutradur Texture from Digital Print

Book of Forests 1 also contains a set of lutradur pages.  Depicted here are the front and back of these pages.  The lutradur has been printed with the same print as the watercolor paper from the previous post.  It is then lightly heat distressed, and attached wrong sides together with another piece of lutradur printed.  The prints are then attached with small stitches of metallic thread.

Textures of Book of Forests 1 Continued

Textures featured here are another back to back section of Book of Forests 1.  The top page is a digital print on watercolor paper.  On top of the watercolor page is a pattern taken from the other print.  This pattern is printed on a bark paper purchased from an on line paper company.  It doesn't have the same texture as my amate bark paper, so now my bark paper prints come from my hand made bark paper.

Here is the opposite side of this group of pages.  It has a watercolor paper digital print base. Pieces of watercolor paper are cut with crochet added around the cut shapes.  These elements are then attached to the watercolor print base and attached to the front side before folding and adding these pages to the accordion style book.

Textural Journal Pages

These pages are from my Book of Forest Series.  As usual this collage is based on the textural elements of the forest.  The prints for this page are on Organdy and small bits of watercolor paper.  The page is put together by hand with a variegated thread with twigs for accents.  Here are both sides of 4 pages of the book.  The composition you see is folded in half to add to the accordion signatures in the book.  The treads are loose and hanging, fringy.  This is one of my all time favorite assemblages for my books and is the reason this book remains in my permanent collection:)

Look for more posts this week and next on the textures of Book of Forests 1. 

Metal Mesh Collage Details

Creating textures from digitally printing metals and metal mesh is challenging.  Metals are mostly smooth surfaces.  When you get into metal mesh the grid of the weave shows textures on it's own.  Then there are the surfaces that are such a wide mesh that the ink flows right through when digitally printed.  These need to be altered before printing.  Beverage cans are smooth but have their own individual look when printed.  Regardless how you handle metals the textures are wonderful when treated correctly and printed on an archival ink jet printer.

These detail prints are from one of my pages in a giant Forest Book.  These are studies as I work out any solutions in putting a book of this size together.  Completed pages are posted on my KathyAnne Art Blog.

Digital prints on aluminum screen make up the top left corner. Fine copper mesh is the base surface.  small pieces of printed printers plates and printed mesh are strung with beads and without to enliven the surface. 

Cut outs of prints on aluminum screen are attached to the surface with waxed polyester thread.

Pieces of printed aluminum mesh are crocheted together with waxed polyester thread.

Recycled printers plates riveted over fine metal mesh prints.  For a look at the finished visit go to my KathyanneArt blog.