Let it Be Encaustic Process

My buddy Randy curates some awesome shows around town. This time it was "Album of the Year," which opened Friday at Studio Le Beau in Tremont (an adorable suburb of Cleveland, Ohio). For this show, we all created 12x12 tributes of our favorite album covers. We of the Rust Belt Monster Collective also used this for our Week 18 challenge topic.

Awesome Poster by Ms. Ashley Ribblet

  I chose to illustrate the Beatles' "Let it Be". 

To create my album cover, I first rendered the image in charcoal on Arches Hot Press 300gsm Watercolor Paper (right now, this is the only paper I use on for charcoal works).

The paper is attached to a drawing using drafting tape. I don't like this tape as much as my usual artist tape (which the store was out of) for 2 reasons: 1) It is lighter and not as sticky, which makes maintaining clean lines more difficult and 2) it is yellow instead of white, which makes you view the color of your work differently.

I spray fixed the drawing, cut it out of the sheet of paper with an x-acto knife, and grabbed a watercolor-paper covered 12x12 hardboard panel I had prepped earlier. This panel had to have an absorbent sheet of paper attached to it since it had come pre-gessoed and encaustic wax does not stick to acrylic gesso.

I then heated up some encastic medium (beeswax mixed with damar resin) on the ole' George Foreman and poured a layer of wax on to the panel. My assistant (boyfriend) and I then used a heat gun to keep the wax liquid long enough to let it soak through the drawing. This basically glues the paper to the wood and "fuses" the wax, making it stronger, smoother, and harder. It also is the most difficult part since the wax cools very quickly. Definitely a 2 person job.

George Foreman commandeered from the Boyfriend... Sorry Ron

Here is the drawing covered in Wax. I love all the cool textures we got! Notice how I accidentally cut it a little too small for the panel... whoops...

Waxy!

And then I painted over the wax in oils! Hmm... I bet you want to see that part. Head over to the Rust Belt Monster Collective site to check it out!

Here is a preview: