Posted on

Checkpoint Salli

IMG_20140517_074723

Before I got too far along I wanted to have some input on how I was doing.  I took another of Salli Babbitt’s encaustic workshops and was horrified at her statement that one should not be putting resin topcoats on encaustic as it is a matter of adherence.  Jeez – that’s what I had been doing with a number of my pieces!

So I had Salli over for a personal consultation.  The main takeaways were:

  1. My encaustic media was too soft.  This sort of confirmed my anxiety about showing outdoors in September.
  2. If I was going to frame my work, only use narrow, black frames.  Or consider the method she uses of offsetting from the wall.
  3. Start using a blowtorch.
  4. Use Galkyd for a topcoat if and when I need to seal instead of the resin.  She gave me a few artists who might be using resin topcoats to check with them.
  5. Some works she liked, others not so much — as far as marketability.
  6. Get some marble powder to mix in where I am doing intarsia in order to contain bleeding when fusing.
  7. She suggested a few Daniel Smith colors to add to my pallet.

I’ve since done all of the above, except for the blowtorch which I will get before starting any new pieces.

You’ll start to see the results in future posts.