I Stumbled Upon an Artist – Munich Neuhausen – Mercedes Felgueres
There they are in the background wondering why I’m taking a photo of their sign on the glass door. After opening the door and walking in, the first question out of the owner’s mouth was “Why did you take a photo of my sign?”
The answer was easy to give. I wasn’t sure I read the note correctly and I wanted to take it home and read it slowly to make sure I understood it correctly. The Gallery space sign said art gallery but the space was filled with designer labels.
This is what happens when you have children. You bend over backwards to help them… especially if you are Spanish. Mercedes is Mexican and she decided to give part of her space to her daughter, Mercedes, to start a fashion line. (They have the same name because it is family tradition.)
The artist, Mercedes Felgueres, flipped her paintings over to the restaurant next door (owned by the family) and the front of her gallery now displays young fashion designers.
After a nice chat with the two women, where I ended up buying a spiderweb type sweater by a local designer (no label on the garment), I walked with Mercedes next door to the restaurant to look at her artwork. This is what I saw:
I was happy to learn that Mercedes does encaustic. She is now the 3rd artist I’ve met in Munich working with this medium Nicole Boots and Emmy Horstkamp are the other two. ( Yes, I can meet myself and talk about myself in the 3rd person.)
The restaurant is called Volk Art and is located at Volkartstrasse 15, D-80634. The restaurant is a tapas bar which is an excellent excuse to head over to Neuhausen to see Mercedes artwork and have some yummy food. Mercedes is Mexican and you can talk to her in German, Spanish or English. She knows all three languages which is helpful for this creative but language challenged Munich Artist.
After leaving Mercedes to deal with the lunch rush at the restaurant, I walked into Perlerie.
I had no reason to walk into this store except that it was next to the gallery and I like windows that are a bit too busy. Upon entering I found lots of this:
and bought this:
Ah. Lovely. Five strands of golden beads for 2,50 Euro each (You do the math) I also bought the ribbon chains to hang a pendant that Angela Smets made. Angela lives in Neuhausen but her studio is at the WiederFabrik. You can see her work at the Affordable Art Fair this fall or make an appointment with her at her studio.
Today, I’m heading over to check out a new art store in town. I will give you a heads up tomorrow as I add more artsy places to my list.
Art pieces for sale at the Arte Caliente fest on Saturday at so.cal in Munich,Germany
I was asked to create an “erotic” art piece and this is what I created using encaustic on wood. The grooves to the left are for you to run your fingers through… Both hands no thumbs. The wax begs to be touched so I wrote the words giving the viewer permission to put their fingers on the surface of the piece. I stroked the wax all the way up to Schwabing. It feels soft like warm marble. I would love for you to get to experience the same thing. The surface can be wiped with a cloth cause it is encaustic= wax/resin. The art piece is on display at so.cal in Schwabing, Germany.
Artist: Emmy Horstkamp Title: “Touch Me.” Material: Encaustic on wood. 40 x 40 cm Date: August 2015. Price 450 euro.
The festival starts at 1600 on Saturday. Occamstr. 7 80802 Munich, Germany
Manuela illera is organizing the fest which will also showcase fine art films. Here are two interior shots of the space so you can see what it looks like before art and movies.
Dan one of the owners said the movies will be shown in the back room so you can sit up front, outside or in the darkened movie room.
So.cal serves fusion food and still has that new smell (they opened in December 2014.) I will be there early on Saturday. Come have a drink with me and check out some art.
Lets Create Some Encaustic Artwork in Munich – Here is how to get started
This week, I talked with an artist (you know who you are) who wasn’t aware that wax could be used for fine art painting and mixed media. The subject came up in our discussion over my current collage work. I explained that I was taking my collage work in a new direction where I use an encaustic wax mixture to fuse the collage pieces together. He said that German art schools do not teach encaustic wax techniques. The last time he used wax was when he melted candles in grade school.
Because encaustic art is not popular in Germany, I’m teaching myself using the internet which offers many short tutorials on the basic processes. (Some videos are included at the end of this post). I am not using candles but an encaustic medium which is a mixture of tree resin and wax.
Finding the supplies to create encaustic artwork is not easy. The art stores in Munich do not carry encaustic supplies and Boesner has only a small encaustic selection of paints. You can find all the supplies you need on Amazon or at everything encaustic. I purchased Buffet warmers and a single hot plate for melting the encaustic medium through Amazon. If you are wanting to try creating encaustic artwork, here is a basic list of supplies you will need:
- Work space
- Heat Gun (purchased at Aldi) used to melt paint off of things, in encaustic you use this to fuse the wax between layers or to melt a layer of wax to manipulate it.
- Encaustic medium – I purchased this at Boesner. It comes in a fairly large bag for 100 Euro. You can make your own encaustic medium by melting together bees wax and Damar Resin. Here is a link to some encaustic medium recipes.
- Heat Plate – You can buy this heat plate at Boesner or by buffet warmer plates on Amazon. I’m using the buffet warmer because it is 20 Euro versus 150 Euro. I may invest in the expensive art one if the buffet warmer doesn’t hold up.
- metal containers – I’m using little pans but as you will see in the videos, artists use all kind of metal containers depending on the amount of wax they are melting.
- Color- I’ve experimented with pigment and oil paint. In the videos, you will see how the artists added color to the wax. If you do not add any color to the wax, your art piece will be a creamy color (the color of beeswax.) You can also use inks on the wax and shellacs.
- Brushes – You need a set of brushes for each color wax you will be using. The wax will be inside the brush and you will not be able to use the brushes for anything else but wax. I bought some brushes at Schachinger and also at the hardware store.
- Wax cutting tools. You can carve into the wax and do all kinds of texture on the wax before it hardens. All wax and ceramic cutting tools work well.
- Tape – Painters tape to tape off the edges if you want to have a clean edge. So far I’ve been letting it run all over the place because I like how that looks. In the paintings below, you can see that Nicolet used the encaustic on the sides of her art pieces.
Nicolet Boots is one of the Munich Artists who is using encaustic. She is a Dutch artist living in Germany. Here is a link to her page with more examples of her encaustic work. At her last open studio, I took this photo of Nicolet in front of one of her encaustic pieces.
Nicolet mixes encaustic medium with oil paints. In the art piece above Nicolet carved the lines of the circle into the wax and then she filled the lines with black oil paint.
- Wax – The type of wax used. Usually filtered but unbleached bees wax.
- Encaustic Medium – The bees wax mixed with Damar Resin.
- Encaustic – The Medium with pigment added.
Below is an example of art paper embedded into the wax on a white gesso board. I made the art piece over the weekend. (You need to use a special gesso with encaustics. Do not use acrylic gesso.)
I’m experimenting with the techniques before creating larger pieces using my photographs. So far, I’ve tried art paper, printed illustrations, oil paint, markers and pigment. Tomorrow, I will be experimenting with inks and digital photographs. When I get a bit braver and have a fireproof table, I will try burning the glue/shellac.
If you would like to start creating encaustic art pieces, watch the videos below.
Here are a few vimeo videos which also share information about encaustic.
Here is an example of an encaustic Journal
Here is an example of Encaustic Monotype
Here is a juried exhibition of encaustic artwork:
Munich Artists 
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