Get Your Wax Therapy On!

Come to me all ye kinesthetics, and I will give ye wax…

Wait, what? No, no let me explain.

For the many years I have been studying, playing with, and teaching encaustic painting, I have been drawn to the aspect of encaustic wax which let me paint and carve at the same time.

I then set about to develop this luminous, sculptural form of play, and found myself thinking of my studio as a playground and temple, where I enter my sandbox cathedral to make mud-pies with color, light and amber wax.

In the studio, we encaustic artists are scientists, exploring unknown territories, and developing ideas for our small encaustic community. This encaustic community that I refer to is a young group, still in its infancy within the culture of art.

We felt like we landed on the moon the day our early pioneers had success with encaustic wax. Part of that victory was the day Richard Frumess, of R&F Paints, invented the perfect encaustic wax pigmented crayons.

Since then, although still a small community by the global art world’s standards, we have grown into an explorative bunch, sharing our discoveries and inventions on social media, and teaching workshops to eager students, those who tend to be kinesthetic explorers themselves. Perhaps like you.

I invite you to check out this encaustic community. There are instructors who specialize in mark making, photo embeds, fiber, fusing. In my corner, you’ll find me exploring and teaching on saturated color layering, warm scrapes and digs, along with incising, smash stamping, pouring, embedding and finger painting.

I think of my branch of exploration as wax therapy, and I wonder if I am more into the kinesthetic process or the gorgeous amber paintings at the end.

As a student of wax, you really can’t fail, because the process is so forgiving.

Encaustic painting is a fluid process, where we add and subtract layers as we go, so your painting is never done until you say so! Yes, I have even pulled encaustic paintings from a decade ago right off my wall and reworked them.

And even if you make a “mistake” (even the word makes me shudder), you’ll see that what you thought was a mistake was just a golden key to a better painting once you add another layer, or scrape back a bit of your present layer. The old mistake becomes a new expressive mark buried under layers of amber light, adding to your painting’s depth, and highlighting its mystery and luminous transparency.

If this sandbox cathedral sounds appealing, then wend your way over to a workshop here at the Luminous Encaustics Studio, where I will set you up with brushes of all sizes, vats of aromatic amber wax, little scraping and digging tools, a torch, and color, color, color, in a variety of those little encaustic crayons by R&F.

I’ll let you press your crayons right onto a warm pancake griddle. And you won’t even get in trouble. On the contrary! You will be praised for your ingenuity! How cool is that?

See you there my waxy, kinesthetic friend 🙂