Montserrat Encaustic Conference

I attended the Montserrat Encaustic Conference. The real meat of the program for me was the all day workshop which I took with Alexandre Masino. http://www.alexandremasino.com/. I admire his use of wax surfaces and textures in his beautiful landscapes and still lifes. He is a realist artist who works in encautic technique, using the medium's qualities very effectively. His paintings are not a forced preconceived vision in encaustic but rather he lets the encaustic do what it does best and that is to make a layered and textured surface. He has a very good sense of when to control the wax and when to let the control go.

For the most part, many encaustic realist painters don't seem, to me, to fully appreciate the medium. Many realistic artists hope that the encaustic medium helps their particular realism to be distinctive from oil or acrylic though to my eye they could very well be doing what they are doing in oil or acrylic. In fact, some realist artists try to get the encaustic to look like hyper realistic oils..something that oils is best suited to do. I see this as a technical goal not an artistic goal. Some encaustic realists use tape, stencils, and what ever works to re-create an effect close to a photo realism. Why?

I like to think of myself, firstly, as a painter. And as a painter, I see the paint quality and the image quality as equals in a painting. In other words: the painting ( quality and use of the paint) has to be as interesting to me as the image itself. That's the kind of painter I am. I like the quality of encaustic surface (textured, thickness, layered and luscious colors) but I will only use wax if it gives me something I can't get with oils .

Again, I am not interested in a narrative or recording image in my work but rather I find composition, light, color and surface to be where the excitement is whether it be in an abstract or a realistic painting. It's here where wax becomes "interesting"; encaustic a medium DOES have an advantage for me over other mediums. This I just now realized through this work shop. I can layer, texture and keep my colors pure and clean in an immediate way. If the results are not to my liking , it can be changed. But because the wax hardens on contact (more or less) the colors stay pure, like painting with a pallet knife. BUT then you can texture and layer immediately, not needing to wait, sometimes days and longer, as you must do in oils to say, scumble. Some oil painters do work up a layer of texture by a thick gesso or acrylic undercoat and then they use thin oils over texture but the texture of the under coat and the strokes with in the image are often a mis-match which, for me, corrupts the integrity of the painting. It's not me, I guess I am still a purist I guess wanting oil to be oil, acrylic to be acrylic and wax to be wax. This is certainly out of favor in the mix media world and classes me with dinosaurs.

The advantage that wax has over acrylics is that though the wax sets up, it can be activated and manipulated on demand through heat. This is unlike acrylics where once the acrylic paint sets up and dries (and it dries fast on pallet, brush and painting and you are always dealing with the water, extenders etc.). Acrylics is an awful medium for ME. I am a Leo, I feel much more comfortable using heat than water. Weird but true.

Now in encaustic realism, the resulting piece will only be as good as you are a painter. It still comes down to seeing and painting but now there is the whole wide world a texture. I intend to pursue it further. It's a risk because I have been somewhat competent and successful in oils. It's difficult to leave a safety zone but HEY! Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Anything else you want to know? It's an expensive medium but less time consuming if you know what you are after and don't stop to play too much.Oh yeah.. in the torch vs. heat gun..using both was the way for me to go. Each tool does something very different to the wax. And a thanks to Heather Hutchinson for giving me a little shove towards the torch.