EvansFineArt.com

Often people ask if encaustic is "safe." Meaning, isn't it vulnerable to melting? Well, yes encaustic is vulnerable to melting if it is in a 150-degree environment. Although this doesn't usually occur unless your house is on fire. But, if you live in a hot area, it also means not leaving your paintings baking in your car. This also applies to small children and pets. All in all encaustic paintings are incredibly stable and archival. There is just more to it than beeswax. In my own work I use a mixture of beeswax, damar crystals and Venice turpentine, and if I want an even harder finish I might throw in a little carnuba wax. Carnuba is the hardest wax and is often used in car polish. Needless to say, it's tough. But, in encaustic painting it also has a tendency to push the overall tone of the painting toward yellows. So if that isn't a problem for the planned painting I'll throw a little into the mix. Of course, if you love the look, but are still hung up about the wax issue, there are fine art prints available on the web site at www.evansfineart.com.

Recently the subject of studio safety has come up quite a lot, so here is one more post on the topic, this time dealing with safety and health concerns regarding the use of raw pigments. Normally in encaustic works, as used by many artists, the pigments are pre-mixed, or pre-contained within a beeswax cake. This renders them virtually harmless and as previously mentioned encaustic paints like this are widely available. However, when you mix your own encaustic paints, or use loose pigment in the painting process as I often do, things become more problematic.
Many loose pigments are hazardous to your health either through being carcinogenic in and of themselves or through the damage they can do to your lungs just on a particulate basis. So, when or if you work with loose pigments (and this applies to making your own oil paints as well) proper precautions should always be taken. At the bare minimum you should be wearing a dust mask, that fits you well. Make sure it is quite snug around your nose because many of them tend to leave a gap around the upper edges of your nostrils so please pay attention to this.
After you've taken due precaution to protect your lungs, disposable latex or vinyl gloves should be worn to minimize skin contact. Some of these pigments can in fact be absorbed through your skin and thus into your system. Granted, this doesn't happen instantaneously so if you get a tear or manage to get some pigment on an unprotected area, just make sure you wash it off within a reasonable amount of time. For that matter, taking a shower after your done is a pretty good idea. Many of these pigments are very very fine and tend to drift around in your studio for quite awhile. So you could be wearing a coating of fine pigment and not even know it. Which brings me to the final piece of the healthy studio arrangement: ventilation.
I use a 12-inch exhaust fan which vents to the outdoors. It also has a filter so that your not poisoning your neighbors. And, it is within three feet of the actual work space. This is also a good thing to have to take away some of the nasty fumes that can accumulate from cooking up a batch of encaustic medium.
If you plan on working with raw pigments, please take due precaution. We'd all like to be in the position of looking forward to your next work rather than mourning the loss of your potential.

Here we go again with the photo vs. art controversy. The latest issue of ArtNews discusses and/or promotes the controversy of using photography and electronic means to create paintings. I'm not sure exactly where they come down on the idea even after reading it twice. They like to think of themselves mearly as trend spotters and aren't about to take a real stance on anything that might jeopardize their ad revenue....so I'll do it for them.
If you take some photos or see a photo and turn them over in your head and move things around and take that as a source of inspiration then I think it's absolutely fine.
But, as this article mentions, you take some images and project them, and trace from that projection (you know, like when you were in grade school) I don't see how you can call that "using a tool." That's tracing. Anyone can do that. Yeah sure it speeds the process and so does paying someone else to execute a painting for you....but if you're stepping back that far from the process then your not an artist...you're an art director. Get a job at an ad agency. Afterall, advertising has always been a derivative usurper of real creativity.
If you're going to call yourself an artist then be one. No short cuts. No stepping back from the process. The process is part of what creation is all about. If you can't do the work, work doing something else.

I look at a lot of art, not just encaustic art, and I see the same themes and ideas constantly. Have artists lost the ability to see through the veneer of society, government and politics? I'm beginning to think the only way to get a rise out of people is to shock them with statements like, "Gee, President Bush's tax cut really seems to be working out well for the economy." Try that one out at your next artist get together. Talk about provocative. I think too many artists have become victims of the dogmas that surround us. Let's all put down the Kool-Aid manufactured by the left and the right and be the ones to cut through. Step out of your safety zone. Seriously consider all the points of view so when you sit down to create you do, in fact, have an honest point; and it isn't just the one on your head.