I am into my fruity phase. Pears and Dragon Fruits this week. First up, dragon fruit. Photographed them. That was the easy part. Then, what to do? The encaustic process? Or, Leave it be?
I decided to do both but with different images. The encaustic photo transfer image was the yellow textured and painted background. Why? Photo Transfers of lighter and bright colors seem to work better with my textured and digitally painted photos. I textured the photo on left first. Then, brought it into Topaz Impressions. Worked on several choices, Van Gogh 2, Jim Salla Oil, Georgia O’Keefe 1 but ultimately went with an odd choice: Obscurity 1. I hardly ever use that one. But I liked what it did to the background and the exterior fringe of the dragon fruit. Then, I layered that look with the textured one and masked in the details of the center of the fruit as all of that had been obscured in “Obscurity”.
Then, I did a photo transfer.
After letting the transfer dry thoroughly, I put a layer of the wax that is meant for a topcoat or basecoat only. It dries clear. Very different than the regular encaustic medium. I tried this instead of varnish for reasons mentioned in last post about My Encaustic Flat World. After the wax layer was dry, I used an oil stick to fix the holes and to enhance the fruit color. A little blast of heat gun from higher angle than I’d use on a straight mounted photo!
So, now, I’ve got these two pondering to be or not to be and meanwhile my bosc pear got over-heat-gunned by someone. Oy. Word to the Wise: A photo transfer is much more vulnerable to the heat gun than a straight mounted photo. So, the Bosc Pear will have to wait to next post.
