Alexa

[Mischa Milosevic]

Sharon, another sincere congrats. I love the way you have incorporated your favorite colors. Makes for a grate painting. Grate control in color/value.

My sincere and all the best to you

[Sharon Knettell]

Mischa,

Thank-you for the compliments on the color. I added wax medium to the subsequent layers of the blue. It makes the paint layers quite translucent and lovely.

Enzie,

How prescient of you! I had both Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" And Lawrence's "Pinkie" on my computer to refer to. They were in fact my inspirations. The painting is now as we speak in a lovely 18th Beacon Hill town House in Boston.

[Carlos Ygoa]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

. I added wax medium to the subsequent layers of the blue. It makes the paint layers quite translucent and lovely

.

Now I see.

Thanks.

[Sharon Knettell]

Carlos,

Don't feel unschooled and ignorant. I just figured out how to do this this last year and I am, I blush, a bit older that you.

Have you ever noticed the translucency of wax candles? They have a subtle glow. Layering with slightly different colors of paint in the wax medium gives depth and lustre to your paint. It is wonderful for passages that you want to keep from being to shiny. I also decided that her blouse at one point was a bit busy, so I added some wax to a creamy white and simplified some areas.

I use www.studioproducts.com wax medium, but you can use Dorlands. You can add from 10%-20% wax medium to your color. I use it also to bring up color like a retouch varnish. One caveat, you cannot varnish the painting. A very good curator gave me this tip.

I first became aware of the beauty of encaustic painting years ago. I saw some, the paintings were awful, but the colors were transcendent.

This is on on traditional linen on stretchers.

My next piece will be on linen on aluminum honeycomb.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Sharon, what a wonderful light, and I find this piece really holds up as a painting as much as a portrait.
Ilaria