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A VERY BRIEF HISTORY
Encaustic painting is the 2000+ year old process of painting with melted, pigmented beeswax. It began with ancient Greek shipbuilders, who used beeswax to seal their ships, and eventually added color. From there, the practice travelled to Egypt under Greco-Roman rule, and some work from this period still remains in the form of the Fayoum funerary portraits. These small paintings done on wood were placed over the face of the departed and buried with the mummies.


It has not been widely practiced since then until fairly recently. Jasper Johns, with his iconic targets and flags, is largely credited with bringing it to modern conciousness. Below is his painting "Flag", which is done with encaustic, oil, and paper collage in '54-55.


TECHNIQUE
Beeswax is melted and combined with any of several ingredients. Carnuba, parrafin, and microcristalline wax can be added for different effects, along with Damar varnish crystals to increase hardness and raise the melting point. Beeswax is compatable with all wax and oil painting mediums, so there is lots of flexibility in coming up with your own recipe. It can be colored with either dry pigments, premixed "dispersion" pigments, or with oil paint {if using oil paint, leave globs of paint on a paper towel or rag for a bit to draw some of the oil out}.
Once the paint is made, it is applied to a rigid surface using a brush, spatula, spoon, you name it, or it can be poured. It only takes a few seconds, once removed from heat, for the paint to cool down and harden, but it is endlessly able to be manipulated. Again, there are as many ways to do this as there are painters. It can be reheated with an iron, heat gun, torch, or lamp. It can be carved, scraped, sculpted, and layered, or drawn on with pastels. Many painters incorporate collage and image transfers as well.

MY METHOD
I mix straight beeswax and damar varnish crystals, and mostly paint on braced birch panels. Some of my wax is in the form of sunbleached 1lb blocks, and some is fragrant honey golden unfiltered wax from a local beekeeper. I melt my colored wax (i use premade pigment sticks) separately in small metal pots in an electric hotplate, and have a crock pot full of the uncolored medium (wax and damar). I do a lot of drawing.. first on the panel with graphite or charcoal, and then as I paint, I sketch with oil pastels. I prefer a smooth finished surface, so as I work.. brushing on melted wax, melting it together, carving away and filling back in- I scrape off nearly as much as I paint on, tossing it back in the pot to be remelted and recycled. The application of the paint itself is only the beginning, and is a very small fraction of the making of the image. Most of the creating happens on the painting itself.
please contact me for more information on the medium, further
resources, or to inquire about taking a workshop.
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