A New Beginning
If you have seen any of Lisa Pressman’s paintings, you already know that she is a wonderfully talented artist. Her paintings are gorgeous, luminous and layered. Looking at the encaustic “The Red Space”, I felt as though I was being drawn into endless depths and mystery.
Lisa Pressman, "The Red Space", 30 x 30 inches encaustic. Please click to enjoy this painting in its entirety.
A few years ago on Cape Cod, I discovered that she is also a gifted teacher. In a workshop at Castle Hill Arts Center in Truro, she introduced me to cold wax and mixed media – an experience that influenced the way I approach my own work.
Cold Wax.
It comes in a can. It’s thick, white and dense, and it plays well with oil sticks and oil paint. It’s sculptural. Oil color mixed in can be deep and opaque or beautifully transparent.
Paint it on! Use a brush, a brayer, a squeegee, balled up netting, or a stick. Slick the colors together. Make shapes and marks. Add more color. Define.
Now excavate down to previous layers. Draw, drag, dig, scratch and excise. Expose the complicated history of what went before. Or better yet, cover it up again. Leave a tiny suggestion. Hint at it. Paint some more. Add paper, objects, sand…stuff. Take it off. Put it on again. Unify.
Lisa’s teaching approach was warm, generous and encouraging but also fast paced. In one exercise we began with a stack of 4 x 4 inch sheets and our own art materials, pencils, charcoal, oil sticks. She called out prompts and we worked fast, putting our feelings and responses on paper.
Lisa guided us to reach down into ourselves, to unearth deep physical and emotional responses, and to develop our own visual language. In the end we had a library of visual ideas with which to begin a deeply personal painting.
For me, this was a revelation. Working day after day in my studio, I can easily spend two weeks developing a figurative drawing for a painting. Gradually, I found myself exploring ideas at times that felt like 70 miles an hour, on a wide-open road to a more honest place.
My work changed. I became less constrained and I began to rely on what my gut was telling me. And then, my gut told me to take this medium, which Lisa and others often apply to abstract work-and use it in my representational work.
It’s a new direction. I experiment freely with cold wax and oil, mixed with mediums such as neo megilp, linseed and safflower oils, and odorless spirits. I’ve become more reckless, and I’m hooked on the glow, depth, texture and translucence of these mediums as ways to elevate, define and realize my subject.
My work seems to be heading in the direction of the imagined and implied – coming from the obscure, unexpressed truths that have been trapped way down in my body until now.
Learn more about Lisa Pressman
Art @ https://www.lisapressman.net/
Classes @ https://www.lisapressman.net/events/
Mentoring @ https://www.lisapressman.net/mentoring/
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