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Reworking and encaustic painting

Reworking an Encaustic Painting

As would happen to most artists, I found myself continually staring at a piece I’d created several months ago that didn’t seem to hit the mark.

There were aspects I liked about it, but overall it seemed to me to be just too much of the same thing going on all over the painting. There was just no strong focal point. So I decided to rework it.

The process

  1. Since there were textures I liked in the painting that I wanted to keep, I decided to tape them off so as to not disturb them in the process.
  2. Then I scraped off the entire center of the painting right down to the first few layers of medium.
  3. This I filled in with more medium to level the amount of wax throughout the painting but also to create a white space within which to work.
  4. The scrapings themselves were very interesting. They held my interest more than when they were part of the original piece! I placed them back in, fused, then added raw umber to them, wiping off the excess and giving it a final fusing.

Here’s the result

2015-06-10_5578c0a160a7f_monoliths-web.jpg

About Victor McGhee

Victor McGhee - Encaustic Artist was born in Scotland, grew up in NYC, and was raised in the US.

In the past I've experimented with mixed media assemblage, mosaics, artist trading cards, oils and charcoal drawings.

These days I focus on Encaustic Mixed Media painting. You can learn more about Victor at http://victormcghee.com

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3 thoughts on “Reworking an Encaustic Painting”

  1. I have been saving some scrapings from my “re-dos” and wondering what I could do with them. They are really beautiful! Now I have a good idea how to use them. Thanks so much!

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