Regina Quinn
Regina Quinn
Regina B Quinn, an award-winning encaustic artist who resides in the Northern Catskill Mountains of New York, has been part of the Painting with Fire faculty since its inception. While her career encompasses painting, photography, ceramics, printmaking, and theatrical set design, Regina now focuses on creating works in encaustics combined with oils, India inks and watercolors. She teaches encaustic painting internationally and her work is included in numerous private collections and the permanent collections of the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn and the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe.
Regina is represented by the Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, New York, and she serves as President of International Encaustic Artists and Vice-President of the Woodstock Art Association & Museum’s Board of Directors.
About her work she writes:
Rooted in my deep connection to the natural world, my encaustic paintings are an expression of my love and sense of stewardship for the fragile balance that allows life to thrive on this planet. My works are primarily abstracted landscapes suspended at the edges of day between darkness and light.
Even as the darkness enshrouds, physically and metaphorically, it is pierced by glimmers of light—often unexpected light. That piercing of the darkness is what drives me to create my paintings.
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You can view Regina’s work at:
Class Details
Accretion: Enhancing the textural depth & drama of your work
If you paint with encaustics, you know that the wax sometimes clumps. This characteristic can be a challenge when you are seeking to create a smooth surface, but it can also be used to interesting, even magnificent, effect in building textural depth and drama.
Gather a few of your discarded panels, several sharp scratching and incising tools, warm up a batch of medium and a few colors, including a pale opaque, a warm translucent, a warm cool, and perhaps another favorite color of yours. Hake brushes are excellent for smooth applications, but rough, inexpensive “chip” brushes are terrific for building texture.
During this session we’ll consider ways of purposefully coaxing and guiding the clumping (accretion) of the encaustics so that it enhances your work. But, first, get ready to just play, explore, be daring, then step back and take note of how you achieved the resulting effects so that you can incorporate them with intention in future works. Clear your work area so that you can freely splash, scratch, scrape and rebuild your encaustic layers!
Excavating Layers: Creating, concealing & revealing hidden gems
Layering and scraping back are processes shared by all of us who work with encaustics on panels; however in this session I focus on a way of building a “gem-laden” base, covering it with opaque layers and then revealing what lies beneath. I chose this approach because it seemed best-suited to my inspiration—the scattered wildflowers hidden amidst lush greenery along the dirt road where I live and take daily walks.
I demonstrate how I freely work colors diluted with lots of medium to form the foundational layers, splashing and dancing the encaustics across the surface. I then coat with a bright opaque green concealing the base.Next, I create an oil painting on that green encaustic surface, suggesting the energetic lines and patterns of the grasses and leaves, using R&F Pigment Sticks and Blending Medium, which I work freely with a silicone scraper.
Once the oils dry for at least a week, I return with a variety of ceramic loop tools and other sharp items to carve out organic forms, revealing pops of soft colors, sprinkled across the surface. This process of revealing “hidden gems” is reminiscent of the joyful experience of discovering simple, humble roadside blossoms when you slow down and take time to find beauty in unexpected places.
