Encaustic Archives - Laura Tyler

Palette Contemporary Art and Craft in Albuquerque

A little over a week ago I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the opening of When Heaven and Nature Sing at Palette Contemporary Art & Craft. Albuquerque is a high elevation city set in a geologic bowl. It is bordered by the Sandia Mountains to the east and a row of defunct volcanoes to the west. The city has an old town, and a downtown populated by mid to tall-rise buildings, but its creative heart feels spread out among its many square miles of low-lying strip malls and residential neighborhoods.

Looking east toward Albuquerque and the Sandias from the Vulcan Volcano Loop Trail, Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico

Palette Contemporary Art & Craft, located at 7400 Montgomery Blvd. NE in Albuquerque, has the hallmarks of a coastal urban gallery – white walls, high ceilings, polished floors – minus the big city attitude. Gallery directer Kurt Nelson is as personable as they come and his assistant, Ariana, will chat football with you as easily as she’ll chat about the art.

“When Heaven and Nature Sing” is a show of thirty-six paintings from my series of One-Hundred Flowers, up at Palette Contemporary Art & Craft in Albuquerque, New Mexico through the end of the year

The aesthetic at Palette is modern and bright.

“When Heaven and Nature Sing” at Palette with art glass in foreground

And the gallery is strong on art glass, a lot of which has a retro-futurist look and feel.

Another angle

Center row from right to left, “Pickle,” “Superkitty,” and “Bean”

Center right, “Soothsayer”

Surprise! Kurt commissioned a local bakery to make a batch of frosted cookies in the shape of “Sun Pop” for the opening.

Cookies frosted to match “Sun Pop”

“Sun Pop,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

Call or email Kurt and Ariana to ask about Sun Pop or any other painting in the show.

Brushy/grassy

Here are few images from a new series of monotypes.

“Strike,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

Monotypes are one-off prints with a painterly quality. (I think of them as a print/paint hybrids.) The process for making them is immediate and cathartic.

“Thrust,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

My palette for these is minimal, mostly indigo, plus some black, sepia and a few other colors.

“Meander,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

See these and more at the Fifth Annual Petite Holiday Fair at my studio this Saturday, December 10th! Join me from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, 1650 Yellow Pine Avenue, Boulder, CO.

“Swoop,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

When Heaven and Nature Sing

Join me! When Heaven and Nature Sing, a show of thirty-six paintings from One-Hundred Flowers is showing at Palette Contemporary Art and Craft in Albuquerque, New Mexico this December.

“Sun Pop” is one of thirty-six paintings in “When Heaven and Nature Sing” at Palette in Albuquerque this month.

While not much of a churchgoer, I do attend a service at my neighborhood church on Christmas Eve to sing the old songs by candlelight. Joy to the World, is a regular on the roster. The refrain, “and heaven and nature sing,” always gets me wondering . . . What is the relationship between heaven and nature in the song? Can you explain it using color?

“Saber,” “Rethinking the Fossil Record,” ” Kewpie,” and “Juicy,” each is encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

One Hundred Flowers is a series of paintings based on botanical subjects where I aim to balance abandon with order by putting loose, gesture drawings of organic, botanical forms through a series of refining steps.

“Kewpie,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

Within each individual piece, I tend to go for analogous or tonal colors. My goal is to arrive at a finished piece where the original subject is distilled to an essence, clarified, and transformed.

“Bean,” encaustic, ink and gold leaf on panel, 5″ x 4″

But the series as a whole contains a mix of analogous and complementary hues. The thirty-six pieces below are available at Palette starting today through the end of the month. Call or email gallery director Kurt Nelson for more information.

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Saber

“Saber,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ X 4″

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Workshop hiatus

Summer is my slow season for workshops. So while I’ll be in there working, my studio (always open by appointment) will be closed to a regular schedule of encaustic workshops until fall. Stay tuned! Fall dates for Basic and Continuing Encaustic, and Encaustic Transfer coming soon. Can’t wait until then? Email me to schedule a private lesson.

Wax coated brushes ready for action.

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Four Encaustic Samplers

Here are four encaustic samplers made by four different artists in a recent Basic Encaustic workshop at my studio. We make samplers in Basic Encaustic so artists new to the medium can explore it freely without the pressure to produce art right off the bat. It’s exciting to see the results people get. The sampler format with its constraints reveals something interesting about each artist’s sensibility.

The receding “S” or shoulder shape that emerged in this texture sampler is rich with symbolic meaning for the artist who created it. Any visual symbol that feels potent to you is worth exploring and could be the start of a series.

Each of the three or so samplers this artist produced was characterized by loose, sensual brushwork and a natural, almost relaxed approach to composition. Already, I think, she is ready for a larger panel size to accommodate the span of her gesture.

The incised marks in this texture sampler have a wonderful, expressive quality that remind me of printmaking panels.

With her thoughtful approach to composition, this artist rapidly build a sense of depth on her panel by applying translucent and opaque layers of paint.

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Wax and Fiber

Wax and Fiber is the focus of the Winter 2015/2016 issue of Surface Design Journal. And from what I can tell, it is a juicy one! Chock full of stories and images by and about artists who work with wax sourced at the International Encaustic Conference. Check out a sample here.

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Ten Things Joanne Mattera Knows for Sure About Encaustic

Joanne Mattera, painter and author of The Art of Encausitc Painting, posted a terrific nuts and bolts essay over the weekend that clarifies some of the confusing information floating around about encaustic paint. If you’re confused about the difference between encaustic and cold wax medium (they are not the same, nor are they compatible); wondering how to describe your image transfer work (many choices but avoid the trendy and misleading ‘photo encaustic’); or seeking an up-to-date list of encaustic resources, you will find 10 Things I Know for Sure About Encaustic an interesting read.

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