Painting with Wax — Why Has No-on Ever Heard of This!
Encaustic wax
Oil, watercolour or acrylics. They are the big three. When I say I paint with wax, I get some odd looks.
“How does that work?” is a common question. When I try to explain that I use an iron, it gets even more confusing. “An ordinary house iron? For ironing clothes?”
Well, not exactly…
Encaustic wax has become the primary medium I use when painting, now. How I do this, is that I will melt coloured wax blocks directly onto the hot iron to produce molten flows of colour, which I apply straight onto sealed card.
This dries almost immediately, and can be worked into with the edges, point or flat of the iron which re-melts the wax on the card surface, letting it flow into new forms and shapes. This can create very vibrant, yet translucent images. The wax can also be wiped off quickly, while it is still hot, to produce hazy effects of sky or water.
As you can see from this short video there is more to painting with wax than just melting wax onto an…
