Includes a $15 materials fee
Instructor: Isabelle Gaborit
Monday - Tuesday
June 2 - 3
10am - 4pm
2 sessions at Edgewood Farm
Discover the transformative potential of contrast in encaustic painting in this immersive workshop led by Isabelle Gaborit. Focusing on the dynamic interplay between smooth and textured surfaces, this workshop will explore how artists can use contrast to guide the viewer's eye through intentional visual pathways, encouraging prolonged engagement. Participants will delve into various forms of contrast—shape, line, value, edges, saturation, temperature, and texture. Isabelle will demonstrate how these elements can be manipulated to create depth, dimension, and balance. The goal is to direct the viewer's eye, allowing it to circulate through the painting, while providing areas of rest and contemplation.
A key feature of the workshop will be the use of highly textured surfaces that mirror geological processes. By mimicking the forces that shape landscapes—such as erosion, deposition, and weathering—participants will learn to build up, scrape back, heat, cool, score, and layer the wax. These physical processes, inspired by the natural world, will reveal records and traces, creating highly tactile surfaces that hold a history of their own. In addition, participants will explore how to create areas of quiet—negative spaces where the eye can rest. These moments of calm contrast with more active, textured areas to achieve a balanced composition. High values stand out and draw attention, while low values recede, helping to create depth and guide the viewer’s gaze.
Throughout the workshop, Isabelle will share her personal creative practices, including her unique methods for gathering inspiration from her environment and incorporating daily mark-making into her work. Artists will be exposed to a range of techniques, from basic to advanced, allowing them to deepen their encaustic practice.
This workshop is open to artists of all levels who are interested in exploring new ways to create dynamic, contrast-driven works in encaustic painting, from beginners to advanced practitioners.
Isabelle Gaborit, a professional visual artist, holds a BA (Hons) and hails originally from La Rochelle in the southwest of France. Currently residing on Ireland’s west coast, her artistic journey began at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Poitiers, France, where she honed her skills in sculpture, drawing, and painting. In 2006, Isabelle graduated with an honours degree in fine arts in Ireland. Since then, her creative endeavours have taken her on a dynamic path, showcasing her work in national and international exhibitions across locations such as the USA, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Germany, China, and France.
Isabelle describes herself as a contemporary artist, although her preferred medium of encaustic has ancient roots. In her studio, nestled between the sea and the lake on Ireland’s west coast, she immerses herself in the raw beauty of the natural environment. The rugged shores, dramatic skies, deep cracks, and rugged stones inspire her process-driven practice. Each painting undergoes a series of stages, mirroring the forces that shape landscapes: construction, destruction, growth, and decay. Much like an archaeological process, her paintings evolve through the physicality of layering pigmented beeswax, scraping it back while cooled, scoring, and shaping. This intricate technique results in highly tactile surfaces that invite viewers to explore the nuanced history embedded within each work.