The art day had not gone well. Three photo transfers, two parchment paper and one wet matte paper transfer. The NYC skyline was the wet transfer and a scan of my father’s old leather car and house key ring and a group of five laughing men in bathing suits and cocktails at a suburban home circa 1960’s were done on parchment paper.
The latter photo I found in my parents photo album and it reminds me of the TV series, Mad Men. I can imagine those actors with these bathing suits, holding these cocktails.
The parchment paper transfers did not work as well as I had hoped. Both images might work better in a wet transfer or simply as a print I mount directly to an encaustic board to be waxed and then painted. So, I’ll redo those tomorrow. The 13 x19 print of these “redo’s” I did this morning. I’m still trying to figure out why exactly they didn’t work. Both images had a balance of light and dark but it may be that the toner on my laser printer is running low. It is flashing that message but I usually ignore it. Maybe, this time, it REALLY is low.
At any rate, this brings me to the city photo transfer. You may remember that the last we saw of this encaustic city was this hot mess of last week.
The new wet transfer of the same city view without the sky came out well.
I had seen several paintings this week in addition to the initial muse of Leah McDonald’s students’ cities and I knew I wanted to try and create a more abstract city scape. The color of the two paintings below I wanted to try verging with the abstract of the two encaustic students. The first painting is by a Romanian painter, Cornelieu Baba.
The second painting is by a contemporary painter William Wray, entitled “Paris”.
Both these paintings stuck in my head. And, I had a working idea to try and blend the slight abstract of Leah McDonald’s students New York City with the color and more muscular abstract architecture of the painters’ work.
Here is the Leah McDonald’s students’ work:
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So, all of the above led to “Twilight City”. I think you can see some of the influences I’ve mentioned and am not sure, even now, whether I am finished with it.
In the end, I painted the transfer but didn’t think it stood on its own. So, I photographed it. And, then blended it within Photoshop with two additional photos, one of a slightly different NYC skyline and the other an abstract of a row of radiators I had photographed at MOMA years ago in an exhibit of the contents of an entire Chinese house! I knew I’d use it one day!
I added a selection of textures and then printed out the photo in a 12in by 8 inch print on Hahnemule’s rice paper along with another version I did of the original encaustic painted city. The rice paper would absorb wax if I decide to go that route but for now, my palette is turned “off” and I’m just going to look at it from time to time over the next few days.
“Mad Men” is my next project. I’m laughing just thinking about it. I hope it doesn’t take me two weeks like this project. And, I’m still not sure I’m done.
