8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 1/13

Encaustic and oil on canvas.... DEVELOPMENT

IRON &

STYLUS

IRON AS

HOTPLATE

HOTPLATE

WORK 

HOT AIR 

WORK 

ARTISTIC

WORK ONLINE PROJECTS

WAXES PIGMENTSRECIPES &

MAKING SUPPORTS

OVERVIEW

&

CAUTIONS

HEATED TOOLS HAND TOOLSREADY-MADE

WAXAPPROACHES

FINISHES

HISTORY

RECIPES & MIXING ADDING COLOUR  USEFUL EQUIPMENT CAUTIONS!

Recipes for Making Encaustic Wax MediumIntroduction Quick Basics Skillet Batch Basic Recipes

Encaustic paint needs to

contain wax & colour. The

quality of these

components & the way in

which ingredients interact

defines the final character 

& behavior of the paint.

Heat is the solvent for the

encaustic medium on this

site, so no evaporatingsolvents are needed nor 

discussed here. NOTE: In antiquity it is likelythat cold wax pastes were used 

as well as heated wax colours..

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 2/13

This section describes

some modern "home

studio" ways to melt and

make encaustic medium

using domestic hardware

or currently availableheated tools.

If a bulk amount of 

medium is made first then

it is easy to remelt and add

colours to suit your needs

later.

* The red sub-index above

will take you to the related 

 pages quickly.

The simplest encaustic paint could be a basic mixture of beeswax and some pigment.

However, there are many other types of waxes, each with their own unique heat curve and

character. There are also resins that can be mixed with waxes to alter final working

qualities of hardness, melting point and flexibility. Pigments (and dyes) offer a multitude

of qualities apart from the colour they imbue. The particle size can change the flow

character quite dramatically for some application methods. There are many possibilities

in formulation. Up to Index

QUICK BASICS of MAKING ENCAUSTIC WAX MEDIUM

MAIN WAXES

...often used in encaustic medium

include: BEESWAX,

DAMAR RESIN,

MICRO Crystalline,

CARNAUBA

& PARAFFIN.

One"classic" recipe for making your own encaustic wax is to melt together 85% beeswax

with 15% damar resin. This will result in a strong and quite tough wax medium into which you

can gently mill / blend your chosen pigments. However, there are many waxes available and

different blend of formulation will yield many varieties of character in the encaustic medium. It

is not a fixed idea.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 3/13

In essence making a heat soluble wax paint is simply a matter 

of melting together the formulation's ingredients in the right

 proportions and at a temperature that effects the mixing, but

does not exceed the safe zone in which the ingredients remain

at their best. Excess heat will damage some materials and

cause dangers of fuming and potentially even fire. Controlledheat is vital and sensible ventilation is also a firm requirement.

Here is a simple small desktop mix for one colour. A hotplate 

is the heat source and the working container is a stainless

steel measuring cup - like a small saucepan.

Ingredients: Beeswax, carnauba, damar resin, red

pigment.

The beeswax is measured into the heated cup which stands on

the hotplate.

This begins to melt and the smaller amount of carnauba isadded.

Once all that is molten the damar is also added and sat back 

on the hotplate to melt.

Stir all the molten ingredients together ...

... then add an amount of pigment and stir this into the molten

wax.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 4/13

Pour it out into a mold and leave to cool.

Up to Index

De-mold the now cold an set wax colour piece and you have

some encaustic paint ready to use.

But let's look at the whole process in a little more detail in the

next part of this page where a "Skillet Batch" is made.

MIXING A SKILLET BATCH OF ENCAUSTIC WAX MEDIUM

This skillet is an electrically heated pan with a built in

thermostat controlling the maximum temperature : imperative

to avoid any over-heating.

Ingredients in this recipe are roughly measured in the cup

volumes as:

* 6 x refined beeswax

* 1 x damar resin with a little carnauba included in the cup

tooFirst plug in the skillet and set the temperature to a medium to

get it hot quickly.

Measure out the cup of damar resin crystals. Here we added

a little bit of carnauba wax into this cup to comply with our 

chosen recipe. The carnauba is brittle and melts around 80C,

similar to the damar. However, it is a natural plant wax that

offers a very high polish shine, so can add a little of thatquality into the mixture. It also smells a lot better than damar 

resin. The wooden mallet is to crush this stuff into a more

 powdery form.

Place the cup full of damar / carnauba into a double plastic

 bag, ready for the crushing to be done. This process enables

the damar to melt faster.

The plastic bags are to constrain the materials whilst they are

 being smashed into finer pieces with the mallet. Some damage

will occur to the plastic bags as the sharp crystals pierce the plastic.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 5/13

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 6/13

We used 6 measures of beeswax and poured them straight into

the skillet.

Beeswax melts at around 62C (about 145F). Refining does not

alter this melt point.

In the next few minutes the beeswax melted. Stirring was not

strictly necessary but it did speed up the process a bit.

 Now the crushed damar and carnauba measure is added.

 Notice the slight dust (click on thumb for a bigger image).

Protect yourself with a mask if you are exposing your 

 breathing to any dusty conditions. Some materials, especiallysome pigments, can be dangerous, so err on the side of 

caution.

These harder materials also have a higher melt point at around

80C, so stirring help to mix them into the beeswax. They can

take a while to melt.

 Notice how the damar is now a syrupy consistency. It is not

easily melting into the liquid beeswax because the skillet

temperature is just a little on the low side.

The damar and carnauba need things a little hotter to turn into

their liquid forms.

So up the temperature a bit, but not too much. Better to take a

while longer for things to melt than force the ingredientsthrough too high a temperature.

If things get too hot fumes will rise from the mixture.

Overheating is dangerous!

As the temperature rises so the stubborn crystal shards melt

into the liquid mixture.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 7/13

All those bits of woody looking stuff are from the damar resin

that we used. It is a natural tree resin and this batch turned out

to be quite polluted with small woody dross.

Once everything is molten check that the temperature is as

low as will hold the liquid form of this wax medium.

 Notice now how the syrupy damar has become liquefied and

fluid.

Stir all the ingredients together so that they are thoroughly

 blended.

The encaustic wax medium is now ready to be poured into the

final molds.

These molds (on left) are actually plastic food containers 

used for carry out (take away) hot foods. They are designed to

withstand high domestic temperatures and are an ideal mold

for larger blocks of encaustic medium, especially as they

come with fitting lids that keep dust off during storage.

Carefully pour out the molten wax into the standing

containers. Some wax may dribble onto the surface, so ensure

that you have protected that with some disposable papers

 before you start.

The wax will shrink very slightly as it cools, so fill the

containers to a reasonable level.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 8/13

Pour the wax out carefully so that any dross or rubbish that

has been liberated during the melting process remains at the

 bottom of the skillet.

Of course, if there is a lot of impurity in any of the ingredients

it will be difficult not to have some enter your molds.

Here is the unwanted dirt that came from the impure damar 

resin.

Clean the skillet out whilst it is still warm using disposable

tissue.

The dirty tissues can then be thrown away and the skillet is

ready for another day.

The dirt is visible at the bottom of the mold. You may find

that your ingredients are pure and this issue does not arise -

that is the best way!

 

But if there are impurities then this is a way to deal with them

that normally work out well.

 Notice that, just as in the skillet, the dirt has sunk to the

 bottom.

So in effect it is only the bottom layer of wax that is holding

these impurities.

As the wax cools it begins to congeal and cloud back to its

solid colouration. This is the base colour of your new

encaustic medium. If we had used natural beeswax then

 perhaps the overall colour would have been more yellowish.

Once the wax is congealed it can speed up the cooling up to

 place the molds by a cool airstream like a window sill, tilting

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 9/13

the bottom up so air can get all around.

When totally cooled the wax should be quite easy to remove

from the molds. This shows that the adhesion to shiny plastics

is poor!

The top is perfectly clean encaustic wax medium, but the

 bottom surface is contaminated with all the woody rubbish

from the impure damar crystals.

Breaking off a piece continues to show that the contamination

 problem only exists in the very bottom level of the medium

 block.

This can easily be dealt with now.

Use a knife blade to gently scrape off the thing dirty layer.

Pick out any slightly more embedded or larger pieces with the

knife tip.

After this scraping has been done all over the base the dirty

wax shavings can be discarded. In reality this is a very small

 portion of the wax that has been made in this batch.

Without melting, it can be difficult to cut the thick encaustic

wax medium which is now a tougher product than the original

 beeswax.

But a sharp hit with the mallet will do the trick. However,

remember the tee-shirt used when crushing the damar. This is

laid over the wax before striking with the mallet to save bits

flying all over the room!

Then the wax breaks into pieces that can be used to make

small amounts of differing colours etc.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 10/13

Finally, the natural state of our encaustic wax medium is

clear. Colour, hardness, melt-point, flexibility, smell,

 polishing qualities and so on all become apparent. Each recipe

you develop can bring different qualities to your encaustic

medium.

It can be remelted at any future time to add pigment.

Next, find out about Adding Colour 

Up to Index

Bigger batches can be achieved using commercial double

 boilers, often used for heating water in catering situations.

These can have internal fitting containers (second from left)

that are protected from overheating by the surrounding water 

in which it is immersed. More about this on the Equipment

page

* Just one thing; it is impossible to get the cold set encausticmedium out!

You must decant or pour it out whilst in the molten state.

The process is exactly the same as in the skillet batch above,

except that quantities can be increased. This water jacket

double boiler is the safest way to heat wax as it is impossible

for it to become dangerously hot - the water limits the

achievable temperature range to within safe levels.

SOME BASIC RECIPES TO GET STARTED MAKING ENCAUSTIC MEDIUM

Beeswax & Damar + Carnauba Wax Emulsion + Paraffins Punic Wax Alternatives

Ancient Approaches : http://www.dieter-

obrecht.info/encaustic/encaustic_ancient_techniques_1.htm

Beeswax & Damar The "classic" recipe for making your own encaustic wax is to melt together 85% beeswax with

15% damar resin. This will result in a strong and quite tough wax medium into which you can

gently mill / blend your chosen pigments. Caution: Some pigments are very toxic, especially by

accumulation through breathing in their dust. BE CAREFUL and wear a mask if in doubt! The

less refined the beeswax the less uniform the resultant wax medium. This is largely due to the

natural oils within raw beeswax that can affect the surface tension of the molten wax. This cancause blotchy areas and varying viscosity within even a single batch of wax.

Some people prefer to add Carnauba wax (a natural plant leaf product) to the beeswax in place

of the damar. This produces a wax that will polish well but is more brittle than the damar 

formula. Carnauba wax melts at around 80 degrees Celsius and is brittle. It has the effect of 

helping to raise the melting point of beeswax (around 62 degrees Celsius) to a higher level - a

desirable improvement for a wax paint medium. Carnauba wax also polishes to a high sheen.

Recipes therefore vary, but a combination of bleached (refined) beeswax, damar resin and / or 

carnauba wax seems to be the most common mix. Some people add micro crystalline waxes as

well. These can be obtained at various melt points and also varying hardness, so the character of 

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 11/13

a resultant wax can be natured toward a more specific set of qualities.

The process is easiest if some of the beeswax is first melted, usually in a metal container either 

over a very controlled heat source (hotplate) or a double boiler where the water in the central

space avoids overheating past its own boiling point (100C). An open flame is not advisable.Electric cooking rings are able to get very hot, too hot, so again, unless you wish to risk 

overheating, smoking and even flammable dangers then stay with low heat and heat limited

options.

Once the beeswax is molten then the damar resin crystals can be added, but it is best to make

these as small as possible by crushing first.

To CRUSH place the crystals in a strong plastic bag then cover this with a cloth and place on a

 solid robust surface. Either use a wooden mallet or even a wooden rolling pin end to smashdown on the underlying crystals to shatter them. Same thing with the carnauba, which is very

brittle anyway and will shatter into shards quickly.Slowly blend in the crushed ingredients, stirring at times to help them dissolve. Add more wax

and continue in this manner until all is molten together. Then stir and pour out into moulds to

create sensibly sized pieces for future remelting and for blending in with colours.

Colouring options are really to use dry pigment or pigments already in oil (oil paints). The latter 

will introduce some oil into the final encaustic wax blend, so in pure encaustic this is not

something seen as desirable. It is not "wrong" but does seem to defeat the primary idea of using

heat as a solvent. Oil will also soften the final wax to some degree, even if that is a very slight

affect it is still involving another medium type unnecessarily.

To blend in the pigment for production a useful volume of wax paint some molten encaustic waxmedium needs to be melted in a heated metal container. If the container has a flat bottom then it

makes it easier to mill in the dry pigment carefully and a little at a time. For instance, on a

hotplate a flat bottomed baking tin can be used to hold the molten wax, then dry pigment that

has been milled as fine as possible is added and stirred in. A large flat domestic cooking pallet

knife is a good tool to mash the pigment and wax together on the flat bottom of the baking tin,

using strokes that press down and spread sideways, a bit like spreading butter onto bread. This

will ensure that al the particles in the pigment get "wetted" and become contacted by the molten

wax. The better this process is done then the more even the consistency of your final wax paint.

The coloured encaustic wax can then be poured out into molds to cool and be used in the future

or it can just be used there and then.

Small amounts of any colour can be made by melting some medium on a hotplate and then

working in a little pigment - even by dabbing the waxed brush head into a pot of dry pigment,

then coming back to the hotplate and working it into the wax until it reaches the right

consistency.

Of course a hotplate is an ideal mixing place that keeps the wax molten and can also be used to

lay your tool on top of so that they too remain ready warmed for instant use.

Up to Index

Wax EmulsionBeeswax can also be formed into an emulsion for a cold application liquid medium. Visit theweb site of Jeff Bryant for lots of information, recipes, advice and examples of his wax tempera

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 12/13

 paintings. http://wax-egg-oil.port5.com

Up to Index

Ancient encaustic approaches rediscovered in Rome:

Michele Paternuosto introduces his methods to paint encaustic on wood, marble, slate, dry

 plaster, gesso and terracotta. http://www.morenart.it/TuttoEng.htm

Punic Wax 1

not tested by this site, so please

check if you have access to other methods for this process too!

five gallons of fresh seawater 

 pure unbleached beeswax

 pine resin (balsam and frankincense)

alkaline salts (washing soda and borax)

eggs

raw linseed oil

 pans, boiling pots, sieves, whisk, scales.

Five days to process the wax with sea water. (Pliny described the process as boiling beeswax with salt water and potassium

carbonate, and then bleached by the sun, leaving the wax a paste consistency.)Then an hour of defolication with the alkaline salts to change

the physical properties of the wax so it would accept being

emulsified with the egg yolks.

This was accomplished by beating the egg into the prepared

foamy wax with a little linseed oil and a drop of balsam using

a

whisk. This will take a while.

You should get a creamy yellow paint.

More about encaustic: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Encaustic_painting

Wax dissolves in turpentine, mastic, balsam and oils, but not water or alcohol. It's non-yellowing

and forms an emulsion in lyes. The Greeks and Romans stored their pigments in small covered

containers and called them "waxes", pigments in wax and mastic. Add a little turpentine with

your brush and paint away! These ancients were pretty clever also.

They painted with pure melted encaustic wax and pigment too, this was probably the wax Pliny

talked about, the punic or eleodoric wax. Three times melted and cured in salt water, when this

wax was applied on stone for decoration, it was called "ganosis". Traces of this wax are found

on Egyptian sculptures and tombs as far back as 2500 B/C.

The early Greeks, before the "Dark Ages", around 500 B/C, were fond of decorating their statues

and the friezes of buildings, and probably a lot more places that were not so protected from

twenty five hundred years of weather. Traces of wax were found on the Trojan Column in

Rome.

AMMONIA-AND-WAX

Ammonia, NH3, is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, a water soluble gas.

Ammoniac, a salt and gum found in the Qattara Depression 200 miles East of Memphis, Egypt.

Ammoniac is the remains of a long extinct insect that lived in the area.

8/7/2019 Encaustic and Oil on Canvas

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/encaustic-and-oil-on-canvas 13/13

Ammonium, is the Egyptian city founded about 500 B/C, as a shrine to their god Ammon.

Ammonium is also NH4, a radical that plays the part of a metal in the compound formed when

ammonia reacts with acids, ammonium salts are alkali.

Ammonium hydroxide, basic NH4OH is a weak alkali.

Carbonate, a salt of carbonic acid, as calcium carbonate or ammonium carbonate, made by

mixing the ammonium alkali with carbonic acid. H2C03 is formed when carbon dioxide

dissolves in water.

Ammonium carbonate or ammonium hydroxide [common ammonia water], can be mixed with

white beeswax 1:2 and boiled until the effervescence stops, stir the mix until it's cool. This will

 be a water soluble wax soap emulsion that will mix with casein, gum, glue, egg, gelatin,

turpentine, resin, balsam, shellac or oil. The volatile ammonia alkali dissipates and the soap

dries insoluble to water, like it was before you started. Put a cap on the container and it will store

for a very long time. Grind your store bought dry pigments into it as you need them.

Giotto added a little cherry gum to the mix and the Byzantine's added a little "milk of fig". This

is the ancient "cera colla' paint of the Dark Ages, except for the shellac, that was tested right

here on Maui, and it worked fine.

I attribute the discovery of cera colla to Egypt and their god Ammon not to Byzantium.

Potassium carbonate or caustic lye soda, is obtained in the impure form from wood ashes, potash

[+IUM], are all the same alkali. It will emulsify wax, but will remain soluble in water, or 

hygroscopic. 

Up to Index

GO TO OVERVIEW

Arts Encaustic Ltd, Glogue, Pembrokeshire SA36 0ED UK info@encaustic.com

Tel: +44 (0)1239 831401 Fax +44(0)1239 831767