The good, the bad, and the ugly

Today I put in 110% effort, I was totally in the zone and wanted to focus on encaustic image transfers. I decided to ' warm up' by painting art cards in the morning and thought I was being so smart when I added pure beeswax pellets to my encaustic medium - I was trying to mix up a medium that was not as yellow. I learned that by adding too many beeswax pellets the medium becomes too soft and doesn't have the hardening qualities required (probably because the damar crystals in the wax medium became diluted). I ended up melting a new batch of wax medium. Live and learn.

I did transfer the photo I had taken and printed here at home although as I was trying to burnish the image without ripping or leaving excess paper, I realized that I would have had an easier time if I had gone to Staples and printed off their xerox machines. They use toner, different from my printer at home, and the image transfers much easier because of the toner. I felt as if everything I did today wasn't right first time around and required me to problem solve... making art is exhausting when it requires solving one problem after the next!

I thought I could do a second image transfer after I printed several 'toner' copies at Staples but I had trouble burnishing the image into the prepped panel. It made me think maybe if the wax medium was warm it would be easier to accept the image. One thing led to another and let's just say the image refused to transfer, I ended up scraping everything off, and starting over. I think the colored photograph is so interesting that I just painted it onto the panel with a top coat of wax medium.