As the River Flows Encaustic

                                    (C) gls

     Time now to create....my work is done until August! Finally time off to paint, create, and teach!

I will be teaching encaustic printmaking! I am very excited to share what I have learned about this medium with others. It is such a freeing medium! Being that monotype was my thesis focus and for the past six or seven years, I have been exploring cold and hot wax, there is a way to print with encaustics!

     Encaustic Monotype is a contemporary medium combining the ancient art of encaustic painting with the general concept of monotype. The technique was originated byDorothy Furlong Gardner, a printmaker who in the early 1980′s “wanted to combine the directness and immediacy of the monotype with the richness and luminosity of encaustic painting”. In the late 1990s, Paula Roland, a painter, began her work based upon Dorothy’s discoveries, and modified the monotype process. Encaustic Monotypes are still in an incubation period and are being transformed in many new ways. Elise Wagner is an encaustic printmaker who uses wax to create encaustic collagraph monotypes and is still making new discoveries in her processes.

     Historically, the first monotype was attributed to Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1616-1670) a contemporary of Rembrandt (1606-1669). Many artists experimented wit monotype, Degas, Blake, Picasso, Oliveria, and Johns, to name a few. Conventional monotypes or monoprints are typically one-of-a-kind prints created with oil based inks on paper with or without utilizing a printmakers press.  (Jung, William, History of the Monotype, 1996).

     I plan on exploring printmaking first this summer, then I want to dive into more experimental ways to work with traditional encaustics.....It's going to be a great experience!