Artistic Polar Bear Challenge: 100 Ways In A Bit More Than 100 Days. #100 - Continued

Well...things didn't go so well with Bear 100.  You see, when I was doing the Acrylic Encaustic Bear, I made two batches of the acrylic 'wax'.  One was the 'refined beeswax', which was used on the Encaustic Bear.  The other was an 'unrefined beeswax', a thicker, denser, more opaque mixture that I was planning on experimenting with later.  Guess which one I mistakenly used on Bear 100?  When the 'wax' finally dried, the bear was almost completely obliterated.

Humph.  Bear 100 - take two.

As I cleaned the studio today, finding piles of bear art everywhere, I was mulling over the whole 'texture and depth' conundrum.  Maybe I was trying to do too much at once.  Perhaps the texture part of it should be separated into 'visual texture', like the layers in the Encaustic Bear, and 'physical texture', like the use of the Fiber and Molding pastes (aarruugghh.....my inner High School Science Geek is rearing her ugly head!).

So, let's go with trying to create visual texture and depth with Bear 100.  Taking what was learned from doing the Encaustic Bear and sort of turning it on it's side, I decided to start with dark values.  The plan is, as each layer is put on, the values will lighten, causing the lightest areas to come 'forward' physically and visually.   Hopefully that will create the sense of depth and texture I'm looking for.

Step 1:  Drawing the bear on a black gessoed canvas board, outlining each area that has a different value.

Step 2:  Painting in the first values.

I just whipped up a new batch of acrylic wax, less opaque than the batch that was used on Encaustic Bear (and much less opaque than the wax that now covers the previous Bear 100).  The wax needs to sit overnight to let bubbles escape, so first thing in the morning, our new Bear 100 gets waxed.

It's becoming the Neverending Bears.