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What is encaustic?

Encaustic medium is made of beeswax and damar resin (which is the crystallised sap from a tree in the Dipterocarpaceae family that grows in India and Southeast Asia).   The beeswax and damar are slowly melted and mixed together, then poured into a mold such as an ice-cube tray.  The medium hardens as it cools, and is then remelted and brushed, or sometimes poured, onto a rigid surface to create the artwork.    Artists can make their own encaustic medium or buy it ready-to-go.  Medium made with bleached beeswax is nearly white in appearance, while unbleached beeswax results in a medium with a warm pale golden tone.

The medium is applied in thin layers that when cooled have just the barest hint of opacity.  This gives encaustic paintings that special mysterious glow.  The layers of an encaustic painting are melted (fused) together using a heat gun or a small torch.  Hence the name encaustic, which carries the meaning of “to burn in” (from the Greek enkaustikos).

Encaustic paint is simply encaustic medium with pigment added.  Most artists purchase their paint from specialized encaustic paint-makers, but some make their own.  

History:   The ancient Greeks used wax to seal their boats, and at some point they started adding pigments and melting it all in to create images on the hulls of their  boats.  The Egyptians used encaustic for portraits that they attached to mummies,  and some of these famed Fayum portraits have survived to this day from the first centuries AD.

Encaustic work experienced a revival in the 20th century.  Fritz Faiss, student at The Bauhaus, is credited with rediscovering the “Punic wax technique.”  Notable artists to use encaustic include Jasper Johns and Diego Rivera.  The 1990s brought a boom in artists using encaustic for painting, sculpture, and collage, and its popularity still increases.

Why do I love encaustic?   I love the versatility, the spontaneity, the unexpected effects, the textures I can make, the tactile qualities of the medium.  I love the simple natural ingredients – nontoxic, biodegradable, and not plastic.  I love its ability to play well with so many other media:  washi (rice paper) and tissue paper, ink, watercolor, oil paint, and those yet to be tried.