Getting Started in Encaustics (2024)

FAQs

Getting Started in Encaustics? ›

Cons of Encaustic Paint

Requires Heat: Encaustic paint needs heat to work with. This can mean more equipment, and a need for care to avoid burns or fires. Hard to Correct Mistakes: Once it cools and solidifies, encaustic paint is difficult to correct or remove.

Cons of Encaustic Paint

Requires Heat: Encaustic paint needs heat to work with. This can mean more equipment, and a need for care to avoid burns or fires. Hard to Correct Mistakes: Once it cools and solidifies, encaustic paint is difficult to correct or remove.

The use of encaustic on panels rivaled the use of tempera in what are the earliest known portable easel paintings. Tempera was a faster, cheaper process. Encaustic was a slow, difficult technique, but the paint could be built up in relief, and the wax gave a rich optical effect to the pigment.

Encaustic is simply paint made from a combination of white purified beeswax, natural damar tree sap resin, and pigment powder. It is kept molten on a heated palette and applied to a surface and reheated to fuse the paint into a uniform enamel-like finish.

To prepare your substrate, encaustic medium or plain beeswax can be applied directly to most unfinished wood. If you are doing a painting, preparing the surface with a ground of encaustic gesso will enhance and give brighter color results.

You can draw, write, or print directly on the wax as a final layer, or you can add encaustic medium on top of dry ink to create a pale wash and faint lines. Once the ink is dry, we recommend lightly fusing the two materials.

Domestic electric irons are easy to come by and can offer good quality tools for working encaustic wax, especially for larger areas of wax application, where a smaller iron or tool will lose too much heat to the support as it moves over the large areas.

Polar Matte is your choice. This Archival Matte paper brings you professional quality in every sense of the meaning - from the coating to the base stock, Polar is the go-to photo matte when you want the best.

Being an encaustic artist in the UK can be quite frustrating! The materials required can be quite hard to come by and in particular, finding suitable boards and panels to work on can be a problem. Canvas is not suitable for encaustic medium as it expands and contracts and could cause the wax to crack and flake off.

The main disadvantage of encaustic or hot wax paint is that it must be kept in a molten state to apply to the painting surface. Modern tools, such as electric hot plates and heating irons, have made this much easier, although not trivial.

What is an example of a famous encaustic painting? ›

Probably the best known of all encaustic art have to be the Fayum funeral portraits, dating back to the 1st and 2nd century AD. Attributed to the Greek painters in Egypt, which arrived in the Faiyum basin after it was conquered by Alexander the Great, these portraits were painted in the prime of life or after death.

Pour or melt on your plain base encaustic wax medium, then begin to add colour. The brush here is dabbed into a pigment, then worked into the wax. The hue can be maintained, lightened or darkened and so on depending on your colour mixing choices. Further wax can be added into the card areas at any time.

Luan (¼" mahogany plywood), smooth furniture grade Maple or Birch panels, and treated Masonite make up a variety of wood panel options for encaustic. Since encaustic painting has its origin on wood based substrates, neutral pH materials need not be used.

We recommend working with natural-hair brushes – synthetic brushes are not able to sustain the temperatures necessary during the encaustic painting process. Encaustic brushes often have smoother bristles than chip brushes so wax can be applied evenly. R&F Hake Brushes, 1 1/2”, 2 1/2”, 4”.

Encaustic painting has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include its durability, the vibrant colors it produces, and the ability to create textures. Disadvantages include the fact that encaustic painting requires heat to apply and is difficult to revise once it has cooled and solidified.

Encaustic paintings are very durable. The beeswax and resin are impervious to moisture, making them extremely archival; they will not yellow or darken. Do not frame encaustics under glass; there is no need. Plus, you will loose the beauty of the wax and how the light plays with the painting.

While encaustic paintings are indeed sensitive to both hot and cold temperatures, the only way heat can actually melt an encaustic painting is if it is left in the trunk of a car in climates of extreme heat or on the wall of a burning building.

Encaustic paintings have lasted thousands of years without flaking, layers separating or colors fading. Encaustic paintings are exceptionally durable and archival due to the medium being a natural preservative, moisture and mildew resistant.