Under Cover Painting

My symbolic work owed a debt of gratitude to the work of Hyman Bloom and Salvador Dali.This piece is part of a series of 5 paintings called “Distorted Realities,” a type of artwork written about by John Seed. It depicts the anguish that many people around the world have suffered due to the pandemic. The main medium is encaustic, an ancient painting technique which means to “burn in.” Historians have found that encaustic was used as far back as the 5th C. BC to decorate and preserve ships' hulls. Its popularity has waxed and waned, with a resurgence by artists in the 20th C. First, I paint the surface of the wood platform with a tinted gesso to create a smooth surface for the wax. Then I apply layers of hot beeswax mixed with a hardening agent called damar resin. Then I heat each layer with a heat gun or torch to adhere it to the layer beneath it. For this piece, I also applied pigmented shellac (made with dry pigment mixed with clear shellac), then painted it on the wax surface. After it gets “ripe,” within 20 minutes, then I use a torch at a very low flame to create the filigreed surfaces on the painting. It also shows the translucency that wax paintings can achieve. In this piece, the upper layer is made with a large swatch of roofing tar. Encaustic paintings tend to get dull over time, but a simple rubbing with the heel of my hand restores its natural luster. This piece is enhanced with wax pencil creating distorted faces out of the shellac marks. Check out the other 4 paintings in this series. In floating frame, with black sides and bronze front edge, ready to hang.

Painting:Wax on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:24 W x 24 H x 1 D in

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