ENCAUSTIC ART DEMONSTRATION

On this page I will do an encaustic art demonstration to give you an idea of what painting with wax is all about.

This is an image of the ventilation system I had custom-built for the health and safety of myself and my students. Ventilation is very important when you're working with bee's wax.

Over-heating bee's wax causes toxic fumes. However, my 4 large hotplates are consistently kept at the correct temperature for melting the wax safely.

Still, some people are sensitive to the sweet aroma, giving them headaches, maybe a little queasy tummy, a feeling of being lightheaded, and even mild respiratory problems.

For that reason, I went the distance and provided you with a studio where you can explore encaustic painting in a safe and enjoyable environment.

Prime the wood panel with Encaustic Medium.

Use a heat gun to fuse the medium into the wood panel.

Another layer of white encaustic paint going in the other direction and fuse once again.

Here is an up close view of what the encaustic layers look like at this point. Wonderful smooth texture and the richness is already apparent.

Here I'm adding organic matter into the warm wax and deciding on my design.

Using heavy wax paper, I push down so that the objects get into the wax. I will often use a wooden dough roller to push heavier items down.

When the objects are removed from the wax the impressions remain behind.

I've decided to do an image transfer. I place the image face side down into the warm wax and I burnish the back of the image with a bone folder or credit card.

Then lightly sand the back of the paper to open the pours.

Then I run water over the image as I rub off the paper. The toner will embed into the wax and the paper will disappear.

Using a heat gun I will fuse the image to the wax and by doing that the slightly foggy image returns to dark black.

I'm adding more marks into the warm wax using anything that will create interesting texture and marks.

Here I've added a band of pink encaustic paint as well as some spots of pink at the top.

Using Raw Umber oil paint, I'm rubbing it all over the surface and making sure the nooks and crannies are well covered.

This is referred to as the patina.

With rags, I remove the oil paint from the surface. Near the end I add a few drops of linseed oil to remove the residue.

The raw umber stays in all the marks I've made.

A final light fuse (sweat) is required to set in the oil paint.

Sweat is fusing with the heat gun until you see a glossy surface without melting it.

And here is the finished piece.

If you have any questions about upcoming encaustic workshops in the studio, drop me a line here.