Brew Bay 8x10 Oil and Cold Wax medium by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Brew Bay  Oil and CWM on Wooden Cradle Board  $80

This piece is very much an experiment.

It started as a demo for photo encaustic which turned out fine.  Just not very exciting.

I had been reading of people using cold wax on top of their encaustics so I thought I would try that.  It worked just fine.  As for how many years it will last I really don't know.  Maybe someone out there will be able to tell me.

After that I thought I would see if my pan pastels would work on the CWM.  The white really didn't show but the rust colour that you see in the bottom left hand corner is pan pastel rubbed into the wax. That seems to of worked great.  I have tried buffing it off and it is in there quite solidly so this is something I will definitely continue to pursue.

We had quite a storm here yesterday.  Today it is a balmy sunny day so time to head out into the bush to walk with my dog and his doggie buddies.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Winter Day Mixed Media by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Winter Day 20x20  Mixed Media on wood cradle panel  $450

This painting started as CWM in deep reds with gauze imprints of dark turquoise.  I couldn't work out that puzzle so the painting got turned upside down.  If you look carefully at the image you will see the texture of the  gauze.

The revised image was done by brushing, scraping and using a brayer and spatula.  I thought of calling it "spatula painting". The cold wax medium is an interesting medium that dries quickly and allows you to mix your oils and allows you to scratch into it.

Blessings for a great day.

Through the Trees Oil painting by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

Through the Trees 12x9 Oil on Gessoboard $110.00

Happy New Year to everyone.

I hope the upcoming year will be satisfying and bring many rewards.

2017 was a ying and yang year for me.

The great things were many and I won't go into the bad. We all have these times and I find that they allow us to appreciate when the times are good.

I enjoy painting on Gessoboard.  It seems to bring out the luminosity of the oil paint.  Its like a gem shining through.  The downside is that I can not purchase these boards in Canada and with the US$ exchange that makes it very expensive.  On the plus side I had purchased some a number of years ago when visiting Oregon so I do have a small supply of them on hand.

If you can get easy access to these boards I highly recommend them.

Blessings for a great day and a satisfying 2018.

Bente

Ruby Sky, Oil on Linen wrapped canvas by Bente Hansen

Ruby Sky 18x24 Oil on Linen Gallery Wrapped Canvas  SOLD

The sunsets we have in Powell River are amazing.  I didn't start out to paint a sunset but the painting took over and here you are.  There are many rich colours including magenta and violet.  The painting was started with an underlay of transparent colours and from there the majority of it was done using a palette knife.  Thick and juicy.

Blessings for a fabulous day.

Bente

Breaking Free revisited

Breaking Free Revisited 10x18 Encaustic Sold

As I"ve mentioned, one of the beauties of Encaustic is that you can go back and back and back into the wax and keep adding or taking away.  In this one I added something that I am not familiar with.  Neutral White.  It's not a bright white.  I added it to the upper layer and then pooled the wax so that the lower layer would come through.  Meld together.  I think this gives more of the floating feeling that I was searching for.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Roiling, Encaustic painting by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Roiling, encaustic on Cedar Plank Panel 6x16  $125

This encaustic painting has plaster in the bottom dark areas.

I had been reading about an artist that found a way to use clay in her encaustic painting.  Since clay sometimes has a hard time attaching to clay I thought this to be a very complicated approach.  My thought was that if I used plaster, like the plaster that was used to set broken arms, and then added wax to the plaster on the hot plate then the plaster would attach to the bottom layer of wax.  It worked very well.  This way I could get the texture of rocks or anything needed to add height to the piece.

Blessings for an inspiring day.

Bente

Of the Wild, Encaustic Painting by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

Of The Wild   Encaustic  Sold

This painting has collage paper and sand in it for texture.  I enjoyed adding the splashes of white texture with encaustic dry brush.

IMPORTANT

It has been brought to my attention that if you have signed up to receive these blogposts by email that Google sends you the notification.  BUT if you reply to the email it gets sent back to Googles' no reply email.  What you need to do to comment on the post is to go to the red  Bente Hansen Fine Art at the bottom of that email.  Click on it and it will bring you to my blog.  You comment from there.

I do enjoy receiving comments but this seems very complicated to me.  There must be an easier way.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente