En-Caustic Art

During my last water color class I was informed of another type of art called En-caustic art. Apparently you paint with wax. This interested me intensely, and I signed up.

I went to the class last week for the first time. The women teaching the class is a wife and secretary of an artist, but never considered herself an artist. She was attending an art conference with her husband, and the teach invited her up to try this different medium. She tried it, and has been doing it ever since. This has been about two years, and she has some amazing pieces. She has actually gotten into art contests that her husband hasnt even been able to get into.

She gave us a background, and then thought us how to actually melt the wax and use it to create the art.

First you need some type of hot plate. She had the two different ones, the type that you cook your bacon on. From there you need to prepare the hotplate for actually melting wax. There are different types of waxes you can use to paint with, and we used crayons. The type of paper you want is photo paper, and you want to use the glossy side.

So we started to melt the different colors that we wanted to use in our pictures. From here, you basically wipe the wax onto the paper, and see what you came up with. If you dont like it, you can basically melt it all off again.

Our teacher does mostly landscapes. So she would pick a color mixture for the land- wipe her paper until she was satisfied with the texture and colors. Then she would do the same for the sky. It is amazing how great hers turned out. Mine were not so amazing.


















For this one, I melted the different colors that I wanted and wiped it on my sheet. Then I laid my picture right side up, and started to us my crayons to draw. The hotplate was melting my crayons while I drew. This idea, while good in my head, did not work the way I expected it too. It looks more like a kindergartner finger painted it.

I tried again. This time with more success, I hoped...

















I am not sure if it is really better, but I do feel like I have the idea down more. I learned more how to hold the paper while dragging it through the melted wax. I also learned that even though I think that pinks and yellows would make a cool orange. I shouldnt mix too many colors together or else I get an ugly brown color.

I am excited to continue trying this medium out. I hope that even though I feel art doesnt come to me as easily as some, I can still create beautiful pieces.