Encaustic Art

I tried my first attempt at "encaustic" art. I actually used Claudine Hellmuth's bees wax collage technique found in her Collage Discovery Workshop book. http://www.collageartist.com/book.htm

I find her books so helpful when trying new techniques. Every step of the way there is a picture and instructions. Anyway, back to wax collage... I have been thinking about this for some time. I finally purchased a big block of bees wax at Michaels the day before yesterday. I could not wait to get started.

I decided to do my first project on an inexpensive small canvas. I melted my beeswax in my little melting pot that has a temp control on it. You have to keep the wax under 200 degrees . It has a very high flash risk at higher temps. Follow all of her suggestions on this safety precaution. She suggests getting a small slow cooker. I am currently looking for one of those.

I loved brushing on the melted bees wax. It smells wonderful. It is so smooth and pretty. It does dry fast but I used an old iron and my embossing tool to heat it up and smooth in some places. This is not the best piece in the world, but it's my first and there will be more because I enjoyed this technique so much. Oh, one more thing. I did find that pictures (actual photographs) did not work as they were too thick and they would not lay down properly. So, I used a photocopy I had and it worked beautifully.