Inspiration came this week from Leah McDonald’s blog to resurrect my New York City photos of visits past. Now, that’s a workshop I would love to take!
She featured a couple of her students who had recently taken a workshop and two pieces were of New York City and one was a collage with a macro flower tucked in the corner.
That was all I needed to get the wheels going. I love when that happens!
This is a two part series on my “Encaustic Cities” and there’ll be another on the “Encaustic Macro Flowers” if I don’t keel over first.
I haven’t done the encaustic part yet as I’ve learned to take some time preparing images first. Using encaustic is time consuming and if I spend some time with the image BEFORE I start to embed it in wax and paint it, I am always in a better position to use the encaustics more effectively both aesthetically, as well as more cost effectively. Slowing myself down with encaustics is always, and I mean, always, a good thing. It simply helps me be a better editor. It is like writing your thoughts down in order to figure out what your thoughts really are.
I am going to do the encaustic in two different ways just so I can learn the advantages and disadvantages of this waxy medium.
I wanted to take a photograph that stood on its own to give me a sturdy base and then try to begin the enhancement of certain qualities. This took some experimenting.
It is very similar to my old days in the darkroom with film. The development of an image could vary significantly with what qualities I wanted to feature. I could ruin the image right from the start if I didn’t develop it properly, and limit my aesthetic choices down the line, so this is analogous to my new digital development and work flow.
In this digital world, the tools we have are significant. I’ve been doing this a long time. I want to use my own skills as wisely as I can and learn new things at the same time. I know, for example, that I can do some layers and textures better in Photoshop than I can with encaustic layers. But, I also know that there are encaustic layers that simply can’t be duplicated within Photoshop. So, getting the two to live together harmoniously is my goal for this project!
So, blah-blah over with–with this image, my intent is to emphasize the variations of structure and color in these buildings and to give the sky an equal visual weight that complements it but does not compete with it. I want there to be a unity, in the end, to all the moving parts.
I call it the “Hmmm….” stage. How to begin? This stage can last several minutes or days. In this case, it was several minutes.
I decided to take the three separate images that I had taken in three different exposures and make it into a rough HDR image within Photoshop. I do not often use HDR , if at all, really, but for this purpose– since I have in mind the whole encaustic and painting process that shall follow–I feel fairly confident that a photo transfer of an HDR version of this photo shall give me the image base I need. I used the “surrealistic” mode within the HDR menu because it accomplished the definition of the buildings in ways I think shall not be totally softened by the future layers of wax and pigment. Personally, I prefer encaustic images that reveal through its mysterious properties rather than conceal through them and it is a default guiding aesthetic. Others may have totally different approaches, but this is mine.
OK. So, once that image was created, I knew I would print it with and without textures. As that is where I want to experiment with encaustic layers. I’ll do one photo transfer and another mounted without transfer. I’ll also print a tissue paper print or perhaps a layer of both printed on silk and keep them at the ready after the encaustic process has begun.
My goal is to understand the visual differences of these methods. And, when they are worth investing the time and expense and when they are not. In the long run, it is worth the investment of time and materials if I can figure this out.
In order to do that as precisely as possible, I extracted the skyline cleanly from the sky in the original image and put it on a separate layer. I took my time to make this extraction a clean one as I’ve rushed this stage on other projects and been sorry down the line. As with so many damn things in life, if you do it right the first time, you’ll have fewer woes down the line.
Now, in my digital file, there’s a clean transparent layer where the sky once was. Perfect for beginning to experiment with textures.
It helps me “see” the final digital image as well as where I might want to go with the encaustic layers to come.
Here are fifteen examples of this experiment, beginning with the screen shot of the transparent layer. I shall choose only one to take me into Encaustic Cities, Part II.
This is going to be a totally time consuming and fun project that I won’t be able to begin until Monday due to weekend obligations. If you want to vote for the one you’d use, leave a comment and a “like” on my new Facebook page: Here’s a short video with #’s on each one so you can tell me your preference.
But, the whole project shall be percolating beneath my surface over the next few days and will probably be the better for it on Monday, the 20th, the running of the Boston Marathon.
I’ll probably have sneakers on as I sit burnishing the photo transfer of Encaustic Cities project, part II.
