Encaustic: A Brief History
The word encaustic originates from the Greek “encaustikos” meaning, “to heat or burn in” and is an ancient painting medium that mixes molten wax with dry pigments and resin. Encaustic was used among Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C. where it was applied in portraits and panels of mythological painting. Encaustic is impervious to moisture. This main preservation property was instrumental as a way of weatherproofing Greek ships. Later, pigment was added to the wax and encaustic was also used to decorate Greek ships.
Encaustic is a very versatile medium that offers a variety of handling methods. Once molten, the wax is applied to the surface with a heated iron or stylus. There are many ways to work with heat and colored waxes in the creation of artwork. It all starts with the simplest marks that a heated iron makes with the molten waxes, worked onto the sealed painting card surface. These basic effects are complied into abstracts, landscapes , fantasy scenes and so on. As you progress and gain skill the introduction of other low-heat tools and equipment allows further exploration and a huge variety of potentials for encaustic art work. Encaustic can be applied to various surfaces such as paper, wood, and cloth. The wax can be thick or thin, translucent, clear or opaque, molded, scraped, carved or etched into. Because of the adherent nature of wax, it works well with collage material.
There are no mistakes with encaustic, if you don’t like something you can always wax over it. Encaustic does not involve much drying time. It is possible to do a painting in as little as one sitting. Once the wax is applied and fused, it just needs a few moments to set and cool.
Creativity is about exploring, discovering, in fact you could say the emergence of the unknown. The scary part is that being creative requires you to take risk. The reason that wax is such a wonderful medium for this activity is that you can always change things that you do not like. Heat is the solvent, so any wax colours can be "unfrozen at any future time. The waxes can be reworked or removed, added to or abraded. The creativity of this medium is unending. To work with wax in any manner is to encounter a completely new world. The dictionary says "Craft is: skill" & "Art is: skill with imagination" When you try this medium it will stimulate your imagination.
