New Techniques: Carving Back Wax Pours

This is the third in a series of four experiments with photography, eco printing, and encaustic. For this test, I mounted a self portrait to cardboard and let dry. Then, I created a dam around the edges of the cardboard using painter’s tape. This was to prep for a wax pour. Once poured, I found the wax was so thick you couldn’t see the image below at all really anymore. My original intent had been to do it a bit thinner but I overdid it! Instead, I scraped back certain prominent areas of the underlying image to reveal portions of the face more clearly, leaving an entirely different look.

I then did an image transfer of an eco print that I photographed and printed on my laser printer in order to transfer. This eco print had only some very subtle leaf and plant prints in it, and otherwise was mostly speckles of rust and splashes of blue from some flowers that imprinted in the process. I loved the painterly look of this once applied on top of the face! Again, I scraped back anything that covered the main features of the face and played around with adding some metal leaf, alcohol inks, and small metal beads to give some final interesting textures and layers. I think this whole process has a lot of potential for some interesting things going forward!

- With Love - 
Sarah