Alternative Printing Report #7

Success With Art Resin And Encaustic Wax

Finally, I have had some success in my alternative printing journey. Actually, this seems to have morphed into a journey of how to display one’s work outside of the traditional method of matting and framing. In my last alternative printing report (that would be #6, in case you have lost count), I reported excellent results using Art Resin after mounting a print to a cradled artist’s board with painted sides. The only problem was that I didn’t like the appearance of the sides of the board when covered with resin and wanted to find a way to keep them clear of resin in order to have them retain their matte finish. Doing a little research online, I found that plain old painters tape would often let the resin seep beneath it, but there was one report of a seriously sticky tape (Tuck tape) that would prevent that from happening. Not wanting to ruin the painted sides of the piece by pulling off the paint with tape, I devised a way to use painters tape to cover almost all the sides, save for about 1/8 inch. I then used the Tuck tape over the painters tape, extending over that last 1/8 inch (to act as a ‘dam’ to keep the resin out) and got great results. Here is the 14x14 inch piece that has a ‘printed on metal’ look to it.

The white stripe at the top is just a reflection of the fluorescent bulb in my light-box. In my last report the sides of the piece were covered with resin and looked like this (unattractive):

Using my new technique, the sides of the piece looked great:

In short, I am quite pleased with how Art Resin enhances artwork and gives it a unique feel. By not having a piece of physical glass covering the piece, the viewer feels closer to the image. I think for photos that would look good on metal or on a glossy substrate this is really an excellent treatment!

MOVING ON….to wax. Photo encaustic is definitely a more difficult process than using Art Resin, but after a bit of repeat learning and trial and error I have begun to get results I am quite pleased with. In a prior post, I showed how I was getting very cloudy and patchy results:

Now, with a bit of experimentation and research, I am getting a much nicer piece. This is a 12x12 inch photo mounted onto a cradled artist’s panel:

If I hold it up at an angle you can see that there is a really nice texture to the wax as well as a unique appearing translucency:

For images that are on matte paper and/or which incorporate texture, I think this is a really beautiful method of display and requires no further protection other than the wax. The encaustic process can really enhance the appropriate image. By the way, what I am calling wax is actually encaustic medium, which contains beeswax and damar resin, which acts as a hardening agent.

Of course, if you wanted, you could also display both the finished resin and encaustic pieces within floater frames without glass, though this is by no means necessary.

I am very much looking forward to incorporating both of these techniques into my photography. I feel that, though the images themselves should stand alone as artwork, these techniques really help to make the pieces unique (particularly the wax). In addition, these methods of display actually enhance the artwork and allows the display to become integrated into the artwork itself.

I will definitely be showing what I create using these techniques in future posts, but with this post I end this series on alternative printing!

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