TCW Stencils with Encaustic

Encaustic mixed media is one of my favorite art forms.  Painting with wax is so versatile- you can literally combine wax with pretty much anything to create amazing paintings, collages, sculptures, and more. Encaustic medium, as the wax is called, is beeswax with some damar resin.  The resin makes the finished painting more durable than beeswax alone, and makes it more clear and luminous.  You can dry pigments to this to make different colors, or just leave it clear.

In this painting, I used The Crafter’s Workshop TCW815 Magnolia Blossoms stencil with white india ink on rice paper.  Rice paper is perfect to use in encaustic paintings because as it becomes saturated with wax, it begins to disappear.  So, after I had cut out my stenciled blossoms, I placed them where I wanted on my black wax background, and covered them with clear wax this time.  Using my heat gun to fuse the different layers of wax together, you can see in the video how the rice paper begins to disappear and the white ink stenciled images become more prominent.

It can be tough using paper in wax.  When you heat the surface, the paper tends to poke through the surface, especially around the edges, so you have to be careful when you’re heating the surface.

Once the blossoms looked the way I wanted them too, I wanted to add some color.  Pink seemed perfect to use against the black, and I wanted to go for a fiery, watery type of look.  So once I added color, I spent some time melting the colors together and pushing the melted wax around, creating this melty kind of look.  A few splatters of white india ink, and my painting looks like the reflection of spring pond at nighttime.  I just love it so much!

If you have any questions about encaustic or getting started, come visit my blog at www.thefarpavilion.com.

Thanks so much for letting me share with you today!

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