VMFA Encaustic Painting & Mixed Media Lab by Karen Eide

Saturday, March 25

10:00am – 3:00pm

*Age: High School and Adult

   

Arts on Main is excited to partner with the VMFA to host an Encaustic Painting & Mixed Media Lab taught by professional artist, Karen Eide. Encaustic painting is an ancient process that dates back to 5th century BC. Pigmented beeswax is heated on a griddle and applied to rigid panels with brushes. The results yield luminous, richly layered work that has its own unique character. Students will learn classic encaustic painting techniques and explore how to combine them with contemporary processes, such as surface embellishment, image transfer, incising, collaging, and creating marks and images with oil paint, pastels, markers, and inks. It is an ideal complement or stand-alone process for oil painters, printmakers, collagists, sculptors, watercolorists, and other artists. So that students can continue their exploration of this versatile medium on their own, this lab provides information on supply sources, setting up a studio for encaustic work, safety guidelines, framing, and exhibition considerations. This program has been organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the Paul Mellon Endowment and the Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund.

Most material and tools are provided: encaustic paint, and medium, griddles, heat gun, scraping tools, collage materials. Below are required by student and optional.

Required:

– 4-8 pieces of mat board per student not to exceed 12” in any direction. It’s helpful to think in commonly found frame sizes should you wish to frame ie: 5 x 7”, 8 x 10, 8 x 8”, 10 x 10” etc. Other suitable substrates/panels/painting boards include hardwood plywood, wooden cradled panels, encaustic board. Email me if you have questions.
– 1/8 roll absorbent paper towels – ie: Bounty®

Optional:
– Apron (wax can get messy)
– Reference materials, sketchbooks and/or previous work you want to continue to experiment with or embelish with encaustic such as monotypes, etchings, drawings, photos, watercolors, stencils etc. No acrylics except acrylic inks.
– Collage material: dried and flattened botanicals, nature drawings photos or inkjet print outs, specialty papers, fabric, buttons, found objects, ephemera, magazines, clip art, lace, buttons, paper doilies, cocktail napkins, coffee filters, dried leaves, thread, faux gold or silver leaf, etc. Let your imagination be your guide! art or copy free clipart in color or B & W. Email with questions!
– Dip pen and ink, oil sticks or oil pastels, water color, sharpies, pencil, transfer paper
– Scraping tools like palette knives, single edge razor blades, small plexiglass pieces, spatulas, pottery tools, dental tools, incising tools, nails.
– Ink jet or laser printed images-your illustrations, photos, or copyright free images. Print on parchment, mulberry, rice paper or other pourous paper. Copier paper is fine too.

*Printouts on tissue paper are wonderful: cut  a piece of 8.5 x 11 tissue paper and tack down to printer paper with a repositional glue stick – run a thin line at top and bottom.

 *** Do not bring glitter, powdered pigments, seed beads, or solvents to class, pretty please!

If you have any questions you may email karen@kareneide.com

Cost is $75 per student.

Registration deadline is Monday, March 20.

About the Instructor

Karen Eide is a full-time professional artist and earned her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.