WIP Southwest/Horse subject Painted candle set

[Hoss_Lass]

Hi All,
I'm working on getting some art projects produced for future sale on ebay. Part of my projects are horse themed painted candles. This set is a southwest subject. The paints I'm using are water soulable liquid wax paints (Marvy Candle Paint) that come in tubes. I'm using a limited palette so I'm also re-educating myself about color mixing!! The paint colors are only white, black, yellow, blue, red, green (there are also metallic colors and florescencents in basics available as well, but I'm not using any of those colors).

The candles are just the standard candles you can pick up in any good art and hobby shop, 6"x3" and 3"x3". The wax paint leaves a bit of a texture and the true color of the paint comes through if left to dry overnight, which makes the projects a bit time consuming. This is a new medium for me, only been using it for a couple of months now. So I'm learning as I go!

The taller candle is just about finished and the smaller candle shows the horse outline and background color for the design stripe.




This one depicts the other side of the small candle with a different horse design:



And some better views of the horse:





The back of the candle has this design (based on a Navajo rug border weaving):


Close up on the border design:


And on the small candle, the background paint and outline for the border design:


Comments welcome! Thank you for looking!

[sassybird]

This is quite unusual. I would love to see a WIP on one of these if you do another. What did you use for the color on the wax?

[Hoss_Lass]

Thank you sassybird! This is a work in progress, the smaller candle I've only done the outline of the horses and background colored where the border design is going. I will color the horses as a pinto like the one on the larger candle and have the same color scheme for the border design to match the larger candle. I hope to work on the candles tonight, as the process is such that I have to paint a bit, then allow that paint to dry overnight and then come back and touch up or add light/dark highlights to where I think they need to be.

The wax candle paint comes out of the tube as a liquid, reminds me of acrylic paints. The colors mix pretty well, but will start drying stiff on the pallete in about 30 minutes, so I mix small amounts that I will use up fast. Since the paint is water soulable I can make washes with it as well. It also is easy to clean with warm water and the brush cleaner.

Mistakes are easy to paint over (after dried) or I can just scrape it off. In fact, one of the finishing steps is to "carve" along the outline of the horse to sharpen up the lines. To perserve the paint finish I use Mod Podge which will help when the candle is handled. I chose mod podge because any other sealer has solvents in it which of course would melt off the wax!

I've painted four other candles like this in the past two months and it's been a big learning curve as I couldn't find any type of instruction in books or from the company for the type of painting I wanted to do! So it's the ole trial and error!

Will try to post more pics tomorrow to show progress .......

[Hoss_Lass]

Ok, I know it's been awhile, but I've made some progress on the candles finally (day job taking it's toll this week!). Please feel free to share your comments, good, bad, indifferent!

On the smaller candle, I decided to imprint the border design by taping (using watercolor paper tape which won't take any of the wax paint off when removed) the pattern around the candle and then using a stylus to press the design into the wax paint:

Set up:


And the result of imprinting the design in the wax paint:



and the candle side:


Now, this way I won't smudge any transfer lines like when using transfer paper (I usually use the blue transfer paper, the excess will, however, erase off). So it's time to add the first layer of color, I call it my color outline. I use a very small brush tip , a 18/0 round Loew-Cornell brand, to fill in the design areas, and a combination of this tip and a 000 spotter for the horses.

Border design side:


And the horses:






So the next step is to again paint another layer of colors in the border design and finish up the horses with smoother color blending and add the eyes and mane and tail textures. I will also tighten up some lines and colors on the larger candle, which is mostly finished.

Completing this candle set is my goal for the weekend, so please stay tuned for more updates.......

Thanks for viewing!

[sassybird]

This is so cool. Thank you for the explanation. This candle is great. I love how the horse turned out.

[objectivistartist]

Interesting.....

[Jo Castillo]

Very unusual and beautiful work. I would never have the patience.

Jo

[DesertDarlene]

Wow, they're wonderful! I would have never thought about doing something like that as I didn't know there was special candle paint. I may just try something like this, too. I love candles, especially around the holidays.

[Diane Cutter]

Thanks for the WIP... great pictures can explain so much (obviously we are all visual artists )...

Diane

[Hoss_Lass]

Oh my! First off please accept my apologies for the lateness of my reply! Charissa, Robert, Jo, Desert and Diane I so appreciate your comments, very much!!! I've been otherwise occupied with life but I have finished this set and am now in the process of getting all pictures taken and prepped for the Ebay sale (along with four other candles). These are the finished product pictures. I've titled this set "Native Borders".

Many thanks again for the nice comments and support!!!