Encaustic painting is an ancient medium that dates back to Ancient Greece when they caulked the ship hulls with beeswax and eventually began to color it and paint with it.

This way of painting is a very labor intensive process that involves a lot of work before one gets to the painting process. The medium itself is made of white refined beeswax and damar resin crystals. The beeswax is ordered in 25 lb. slabs. Damar crystals are a natural product that has debris such as insects in it. The crystals are added to beeswax to add strength and durability to the beeswax.

First, the beeswax has to be melted in some kind of pot with a rheostat to about 140 degrees. The crystals of damar resin are then added and temperature is raised to about 170 degrees. When incorporated into beeswax, it is then filtered and poured in forms to be used as is and to be colored. Beeswax can be colored with dry pigments, purchased colored beeswax and oil paint. Each color has a brush or two dedicated to that color.

Beeswax can be applied to different surfaces such as 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch birch plywood, some clay boards, plexiglas, papers and canvas attached to wood and thinner boards if braced on the back such as luan or 1/4 inch birch plywood.

Brushes are used to apply the beeswax-damar resin medium to the painting surface and then a high powered heat gun or blow torch is used to fuse the layers of wax together. Controlling the heat is critical to the process. It involves layering many colors not unlike other styles of painting.

Since this process is such a physical act and requires more physical energy, it naturally reaches out to the environment surrounding the artist. It lends itself beautifully to embedding images, papers, found objects and natural products, including metals and wires. Your imagination is the limitation. This method is a way to "suspend thoughts" that are wonderfully mysterious and complex in emotion and thought. It speaks of antiquity, blending the ancient with our times.

I ask myself, when we're gone, what stories will be told from our present day encaustic art?  And, what will antiquities of the future look like?  It probably won't be mummies or ancient warships, like what's historical for us now, but it will speak to future generations of who we are today.