Plastering Tips

Armadillo, 2013

Today I learned some plastering tips from Father Moses at St. Seraphim. One of the reasons I was getting an uneven surface was because I did not keep polishing - essentially compressing the surface every 45 minutes or so with a trowel before painting. By doing this you break up the crystallization happening on the top and allow the pigment to seep into the surface.

Even though I sometimes get a blotchy or uneven surface I like the effect. It just makes it look more like an old fresco. However, it is good to understand how to get a perfectly smooth surface when you want one.

Before plastering I got to climb up the scaffolding to the top of the dome to see how they started their Christ figure. Exciting!

Sardines

Sardines, encaustic, 36x48, 2013

Reflections on my obsession with the head and the brain. Visual metaphors of feelings. Here's a new piece using encaustics and oil pastels. Looking back over the last 20 years I see  a constant theme.

Self-Portrait, encaustic, mixed media, 1996

This is my first encaustic. Originally I had painted brains spilling out of my head. Maybe I should have left them there.

Brooding, photo watercolor, 1990

Another self-portrait when I was making clay sculptures, photographing them and painting them with watercolors. A time when I felt the weight of the world upon me.