Haunted Castle ACEO

Something I've recently discovered is a lot of fun to do, is paint in miniature. Well, I suppose they could be much smaller, but the particular miniatures I'm talking about are ACEO sized.

By definition, an ACEO (which stands for Art Card Editions and Originals), must measure 2.5 by 3.5 inches. No more, no less. There is little difference between an ACEO and an ATC (Artist's Trading Card) other than the fact that an ACEO may be sold, and an ATC must be either given away or swapped for another ATC. Just how you'd decide which was which if you came upon one by itself, all alone in a dark alley with no-one to vouch for it, I don't know. Maybe you'd just decide for yourself depending on whether you liked it or not. If it didn't appeal you could call it an ACEO and sell it on; if you wanted to keep it then it has to be an ATC which can't be sold. Maybe I'm missing the point and some kind soul will set me straight.

As I'm interested in the possibility of selling my artwork, I'm creating ACEOs and have started a 'spiderweb' series. This Haunted Castle is the first in the series. Anyone interested in buying? It's a snip at £4.99 post free in the UK. Drop me an email if you want it (de6sutton at googlemail dot com). Seriously. If you're outside the UK, I'll work out what the postage would be.

I'm not sure how many there will be in the series, or even if that's something I'm supposed to decide before I publicise them. Or, come to that, whether I'm supposed to have finished the series first. In any case, I've done none of those things. The series will run until I get fed up with it, and so far I've finished 3.

ACEO technicalities aside, suffice it to say it's giving me a great deal of fun and satisfaction to make these little pictures at the moment.

Misty Morning

This was one of those that came about more by happy accident than anything else. Not the image itself, but the colours, which perfectly capture the atmosphere of an early autumn, misty morning, grassland. Originally the painting looked very different, but I didnt' like it. I'd gone over it so many times that the colours were muddy, to say the least.

In fact, it was a mess.

A few frustrated sweeps with the iron and most of the colour was gone, leaving behind a kind of grey, messy looking staining that I immediately liked and knew I could do something with. This was painted over the top of the original.

The feather grasses were created with the brush tool on the stylus, and the overall faded appearance was achieved by placing the whole of the painting on the iron and allowing the wax to melt and run together.

Result? One atmospheric, misty morning. Happy with this one.

View Beyond

Encaustic Abstract. Trees? Stems? Vines? Leaves? What's in the opening? Mountains? Castles? You decide.

Going Abstract

Whilst nothing about encaustic painting is ever totally controllable - at least not for me - abstracts are more random than ever. A certain level of control over the colours is possible, and the type of marks the iron is going to leave are controllable, but otherwise it's all something of a mystery tour.

Images appear as if by magic - actually I think it's all magic - and the trick is to stop when you get a result you like. That's perhaps the hardest part. Knowing when to stop. There is always the temptation to apply the heat one more time, and end up undoing something you wish you'd kept.

Encaustic paintings are almost infinitely changeable. Keep on heating, and eventually the colours will run together and you'll end up with a muddy mess, but even this isn't permanent. It's possible to scrape the offending mud off and apply new, clear colour. Sometimes this produces even more pleasing effects than the original. See Misty Morning, above, as this is an example of a painting on top of a painting that went horribly wrong.

However, back to abstracts, and the difficulty of stopping at the right point. Very often, less is more. Just because one application of the iron produced a good result doesn't mean that a reapplication will make it even better. I often forget that the iron will undo what's already there. My mind goes back to conventional painting where it's possible to rework existing areas without completely altering the base. In encaustic this isn't possible.

Lesson: If it looks good. Stop.

Tree and Path

One thing I love about encaustic art is the unpredictability of it. You never quite know what you're going to get, or whether the result will be good or bad. Maybe when you're better at it than I am, being a real beginner, it becomes more controllable, but right now it's trial and error. And usually more error than anything else. I make far more messes than anything else.

This tree and path is my latest effort. My own critique? Overall it's quite pleasing, but I'm not happy with the colour or definition of my mountains and the little fence stumps at the end of the path could be anything. One thing I would love to learn to do is put shadows in. This could do with some shadow beneath the tree, but how to do this with wax is beyond me at the moment.

My trees are getting better though :)