Saturday, March 22, 2014

Third Iteration - Melting Enkaustikos Hot Sticks

This time it was my objective to make an abstract painting using professional grade encaustic paint -Enkasutikos hot sticks, which are made out of denmar resin, beeswax and pigment.

These are nothing like crayons.

The paint was thick and difficult to manage with a paint brush, I also can't help but think that the hotplate just wasn't hot enough? It just dried solidified too fast. I had no time to blend the wax on the surface. I would not be able to create a  more technical painting, only an abstract.I also really missed the watery quality of the crayons.

I also tried to make a pattern by pressing a doily onto the wax, and half of the wax ended up coming off when I pealed the doily back.

Wax Medium
The only tool that actually helped me was the modified hair straightener (that was still working!)  I melted the wax that was already on the surface and dripped the rest onto the abstract. I also used a semi bleached wax medium that just gave the abstract a yellow tone. The paint and the medium were both rather expensive too.

I've come to a conclusion that the beeswax is a lot more difficult to melt and requires higher temperatures in other words - using special paints requires special equipment - such as a craft iron, or a hotplate with temperature control, or wax melting pots, or a stylus...

The only positive thing I see about the Enkaustikos Hot Sticks is that the beeswax is that it adheres to the surface really well, and makes a smooth strudy finish - which is  not something that can be done with crayons.

I would consider this a failure in terms of material handling, but it does make a nice abstract.

Final Product -"Bubble and Simmer"














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4 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 23, 2014 at 7:34 PM

    I like your idea to use the encaustic wax. I did a painting where I used just candle wax and then painted a turquoise color over top when the wax dried. My painting class teacher says the problem with that is the candle wax will eventually fall off the canvas due to the acrylic paint and the candle wax not being able to amalgamate properly. To make it work, the acrylic paint would have to be mixed in with the wax while it was still liquidized. Wax can create beautiful abstract art, giving it sculptural qualities and visually compelling texture. I have not seen encaustic wax paintings before me so it will be nice to see your works in class.

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  2. UnknownMarch 24, 2014 at 1:36 PM

    I really like that one it does make a good abstract.

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  3. peter bairdMarch 27, 2014 at 7:01 PM

    I think you had real experiences with the material on this project. I knew about Encaustic painting but had never seen it close up before so this was an education for me, I think that your triple approach really allowed you to follow the different properties and characteristic of the materials which looked quite variable and your creativity in the pieces that you produced showed that you met the challenges successfully.

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  4. UnknownMarch 28, 2014 at 11:53 PM

    I really enjoyed the "Bubble and Simmer" piece, it has an even bigger effect on the viewer when they see it in person. I admire the texture created with the doilies, please continue working with this great surface. I think adding or experimenting with more tools to carve and play with the wax surface would be fun.

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