How to Create Modern Encaustic Paintings

Encaustic funerary portraits are found on Greco-Egyptian mummy cases.

Ancient Greek artists used encaustic to paint pictures and decorate statues in the 4th century B.C. The medium and its techniques reached a high point during the 1st and 2nd century A.D. among the Greek Fayum artists living in Egypt. They painted highly realistic and delicately nuanced portraits in encaustic on wooden mummy coffins. The 20th century American artist Jasper Johns inspired an encaustic revival with his brightly colored, heavily textured paintings. The best known of John's encaustic works are his flag paintings. While the traditional painting method remains essentially the same, modern tools and materials enhance the encaustic technique.

Things You'll Need

• Wood panel
• Masonite
• Clayboard
• Canvas
• White glue
• Rabbitskin glue
• White chalk gesso
• Colored pencil
• Color pastel
• Encaustic gesso
• Paint brushes
• Sandpaper
• Bees wax
• Hot plate
• Tin container
• Heat gun
• Micro-crystalline wax
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Cotton cloth

Instructions

1. Prepare a surface, or support, in advance of executing an encaustic painting. Select a sturdy panel of wood, clayboard or untempered masonite. Attach canvas or a sheet of paper to the support with white glue diluted with water for a different surface texture. Prime the painting surface with a traditional rabbitskin glue and white chalk gesso, or use non-acrylic encaustic gesso. Apply three or four layers, sanding between coats with low-grit sandpaper.

2. Draw the composition on the gessoed and smoothly sanded support. Use colored pencil or a finely sharpened color pastel to lightly draw the design. Don't draw under large transparent or white areas of the painting. Melt some wax in a tin container on a hotplate. Brush it onto the support with a large, flat brush. Use an electric heat gun, known as a paint stripper, to smooth the surface.

3. Buy ready-made blocks of encaustics or make your own from raw materials to save money and gain control over the tone and hue of the paints. Melt bees wax at about 200 degrees Fahrenheit in a large tin. Add a few crystals of ground damar resin. Strain the wax through cheesecloth if it's unpurified. Mix in regular oil paint or encaustic pigment while the wax is hot. Pour the colors into small tins kept warm on the hotplate.

4. Keep the encaustic paints fluid and work quickly before the wax cools and hardens. Dip a stiff-bristled brush into the paint and block in the basic forms and shapes of the composition. Work with a sure and confident hand. Complete the first layer of encaustic, let it harden and then brush on another layer. Build up the painting with multiple layers of wax. Use the heat gun to fuse the layers together. Blend the pigmented wax when it's heated.

5. Experiment with using the heat gun to create patterns in the paint. Swirl the encaustic around with brushes to create different textures and effects. Glaze pure colors one atop another to optically blend light reflected through the wax. Heat and scrape or wipe out any areas that need re-working. Add micro-crystalline wax or bicarbonate of soda to the encaustic for heavy impasto painting. Lightly burnish and polish the waxy surface to a satiny luster with a soft cloth.

Tips & Warnings

• Clean your brushes before the wax hardens.

• Don't draw the composition on the support with graphite -- it'll give the wax a dirty look.

References

• Ask Naurice: Encaustic Painting With Wax
• Wet Canvas; Painterly Encaustic Techniques; Ed Zawadzki
• San Jose State: Painting Encaustic