I’m so happy to have Barbara Cone as the newest studio artist at 26 Split Rock Cove. She brings fresh ideas about encaustic painting and printmaking which I hope you agree are beautiful. In addition to her encaustic art making, Barb is also a curator, and an active member of MassWax, an encaustic organization for encaustic painters in Massachusetts. She and her husband have a house in Spruce Head.
Look for workshops at 26 Split Rock Cove focusing on Barb’s encaustic printmaking techniques.
White Series #2 
White Series #3
In Barb’s words:
My focus for the past few years has been working with encaustic, an ancient medium composed of beeswax, pigment and resin. Encaustic paint is heated and applied in its molten state, hardening almost
instantly. Famed for its layering ability, translucency, luminosity and rich colors, encaustic is the most versatile of artistic media, appealing to sculptors, mixed media artists, printmakers and painters alike. It allows for endless experimentation, a quality especially appealing to me.
Nestling’s View
While I’ve been seduced by the rich encaustic colors for years, recently I was
drawn to using an essentially white palette for its calming effect, purity and
beauty. At the same time I became interested in making freeform black and white
pen and ink drawings on German etching paper, wetting and drying the paper to
create certain effects with the ink. It occurred to me I could mount the drawings
on a panel as a base for encaustic paintings, working with the transparency of
the wax and my ability to carve into the layers to reveal portions of the drawings underneath.
Cloudland Road
I carved through the wax to reveal portions of the drawings on some of the
pieces. Unlike most painting, this process required me to think in 3 dimensions
instead of two. These pieces have elements of whimsy and movement. For
others I used a glazing technique to allow the viewer to see through the layers of
wax to reveal subtle patterns of line and shadow from the drawings underneath.
These pieces are more subtle and meditative.
