Encaustic
Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to add colored pigments. The liquid is then applied when molten to a surface - usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. I make wood panels for my supports.
I make my encaustic medium by mixing beeswax and damar resin, and I make most of the colored paints that I use by mixing oil paint with encaustic medium.
Because wax is used as the pigment binder, encaustics can be sculpted as well as painted. Other materials can be encased or collaged into the surface, or layered, using the encaustic medium to adhere it to the surface.
Encaustic is arguably the most ancient of mediums. The Greeks used wax to caulk their ships and then added color to the wax to paint them. Encaustic was notably used in mummy portraits and other early icons from Egypt around 100-300 CE and many contemporary American artists. In the 20th century, Jasper Johns re-introduced the medium and it has become increasingly popular with artists because of its beauty and versatility.
About My Studio
This is my second home. There's an orderly clutter of equipment on my big table under the windows. In the foreground is my encaustic setup. The tin hood is connected to an exhaust fan, which provides ventilation for the fumes rising from the hot wax. Pans of paint that I'm using sit on a hotplate, so they are always ready to use. There are a heat gun and a torch, both used for fusing layers of wax. You don't clean encaustic brushes; just let them harden. So I have lots of brushes with different colors of paint. When I want to use a brush, I soften it with heat. Other tools I use on the wax are etching needles, scrapers, blades. On the wall beyond the table, I hang pieces I'm working on.