I’ll make the images as large as I can on this post so you can see the texture and details of my first five encaustic paintings, although I prefer to call this series

EnCOWstics

I’ve chosen to marry encaustic medium with the subject of bovines. Encaustic is an ancient medium that has seen a resurgence of interest. It’s basically painting with hot wax. Ever since I saw Jasper Johns’s American Flag at MOMA, I wanted to try my hand at encaustic painting. It’s a very experimental medium, so I got inventive with the supports I used and the items that I embedded.

‘Bucowlic Encowstic’ was created on window screen stretched on a 12″x 12″ frame. It’s important to choose a sturdy support because wax is very pliable. If you want to try something as flexible as screen, you have to go small. I propped it up on my window sill to show you how translucent the wax is. Of course you probably wouldn’t want to hang an encaustic painting where sunlight can shine directly on it. With the metal feel of screen, I decided to add metal embellishment, like the copper ribbon and metal flower and bees.

‘Enlightened Bull’ is painted in encaustic on a prepared panel (Masonite).

Speaking of transparency, I should come forward that this subject happens to be a bull, not a cow. It was one of those magical days in Virginia, a Sunday in May 2015. I have seen many cows on the outskirts of Charlottesville where I live. I had my husband drive so I could quickly hang out the window with my camera, if need be. There are no shoulders on rural roads here making it nearly impossible to stop for a quick photo. Anyway, as it turns out this day, we drove and drove and drove and no cows anywhere. Just as it was getting frustrating, we drove around a bend and there were 3 cows, or so I thought,  standing fairly close to the road. I jumped out of the car and told my husband to drive on and come back and get me in a half hour or so.

I started to attach my longer lens to get some close ups of the 3 when I noticed they had horns. By the time I set up the tripod they had moved quite close. I scrambled to put my regular lens back on. By this time one even had his head through the fence.

I know that was kind of a long story, but I ended up with 150 images to work from and these first five encaustic paintings are from just one of those photos.

Moo-ving on here. The next two paintings are on 9″ x 9″ stretched canvas. The first using rabbit skin glue as a foundation (I know, don’t be judgmental, there’s a story behind why I used it). and the wax adhered very well.

This second painting is my homage to Jasper Johns, with the embedded American flag. It was created on top of an existing collage painting of mine. This experiment was to see how the wax adhered to papers, which it does very well.

And lastly, what’s an encaustic without a cow (bull) on an actual stick?

‘Encowstick’ or if you’re Jewish, it could be a ‘Moozuzah’

Cows have always been a fascination for me.