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:
- My encaustic media was too soft. This sort of confirmed my anxiety about showing outdoors in September.
- If I was going to frame my work, only use narrow, black frames. Or consider the method she uses of offsetting from the wall.
- Start using a blowtorch.
- 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.
- Some works she liked, others not so much — as far as marketability.
- Get some marble powder to mix in where I am doing intarsia in order to contain bleeding when fusing.
- 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.